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[naturegirl]

Hello...

I am looking into attaining a PhD in Accounting.  I am interested in the University of Kansas.  I am not finding much information on the ranking of this university.

Does anybody have an opinion to share?  I am also considering other universities in the midwest (maybe Nebraska?).  I have about a 3.5 GPA and have yet to retake the GMAT.

Thanks!

[dept_geek]

While I am sure one of the Accounting Doctors will weigh in soon enough, you may want to check some older posts:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,38918.0.html
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,36803.0.html
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,20727.0.html
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,36602.0.html
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,32127.0.html
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,36496.0.html
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,17993.0.html

[octoprof]

In my opinion, Kansas is a better program than Nebraska. 

Here's what you need to think about... make a list.

What areas are you most interested in researching?   You want to find a school with faculty who are researching in sub-fields that interest you. You also want to find a school with recent graduates in the sub-fields that interest you.  If your major interest is anything other than capital markets research (hard core financial, really finance), then you want to be sure not to pick a school that only creates capital markets researchers.

You also want to think about what sort of place you want to teach after getting your PhD and be sure to earn your PhD from a school that is good enough to get you jobs in the type of schools you want to work in (thank God I'm not an English PhD, that sentence is horrible).  If you get a PhD from La Tech, for example, you will never get a job at Stanford.  Nothing against La Tech, just using it as an example; loads of good people have studied there, but they don't get jobs at the tip-top programs.

So, here's what you do for next step.

Go here: http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoctInfo.html
Click: Listing of Doctoral Graduates by School

This leads to a huge pdf file that is reasonably up-to-date and about 95% accurate. It lists every graduate of almost every PhD program in Accounting, in chronological order, and shows where they are, what their rank is, what their specialty areas are, etc.  It does leave off a couple of newer PhD programs and definitely has occasional errors, but you'll live.  It's good enough for your needs, trust me.

Now, look at the recent grads for the programs you are considering (progams are listed in alpha order in the pdf file) and see
1) where they teach/research.  Are these the types of places you'd like to be?
2) what are their specialties. Are these the areas that interest you for teaching and research.

For example, here's a random entry:

Gill, Susan Assoc Wash State FMC PHD 94. Mich St &1994

Dr. Gill earned her PhD in 1994 from Michigan State. She is currently an associate professor at Washington State, where she was hired in 1994 (last year listed is for hire date at current job). She is a CPA (that's what the & means) and her interest areas are Financial, Managerial and Cost Accounting [FMC]. 

If you get confused about the letter codes for the interest areas, just ask. Some of them are weird. For example. X is tax and T is accounting theory.

When you contact prospective schools the next thing you want to know is
3) how long they expect the program to take.  If they say 6 years and you haven't got a commitment from yourself for that length of time, then move on. Most, these days, say 4 years or 5 years (post masters), but you want to check that out carefully.  My old program was 4 years back in the ice ages, but I managed to finish in a bit less than that. I think most programs have purposefully made the degree program longer (perhaps to keep those PhD students there teaching for them). Of course, if you are slow getting your dissertation done, it can take even longer.

Also,
4) size of program might matter. If they are too small, you won't have enough students to talk to and grow with. If they are too big, they might not have enough profs to support the research of all the students.  Look at the pdf file and see how many grads they've been putting out each year for the last 10 or so, as well.

Back to your original comment. Kansas is a good PhD program. I know several profs there. They are fairly well-rounded (i.e. all grad don't do the same one tiny area of research).  They are well-respected.

Ask any more questions you have and I'm happy to respond. If you want private answers, just send me a private message.

octoprof

[naturegirl]

I actually have one more school in mine that I did not mention...Kentucky...I was wondering if there were any opinions about that school.


Thank you for the replies so far, I really appreciate it!

[octoprof]

Kentucky has some great faculty. I think, though, that placement from Kansas and Nebraska might be better.  Go through the steps I posted above and gather some more info and then come back with more questions, if you have them. Good luck!

Do you have a masters degree yet? If not, I'd say go get your MAc, preferably at a school other than your undergrad alma mater, then apply to PhD programs while finishing up the MAc.  If possible, go to a better school for your MAc than for your BS (of course, I have no idea, you might be at a top school for your BS, just giving generally useful advice here).

On a different sort of topic, schools may also be ranked by the level of research output from their faculty or their graduates.  If you search the accounting literature, you'll find articles ranking them on such things.

octoprof

[accountingrocks]

Octoprof, thanks for posting such a thorough explanation of how to examine schools.  I'm also considering accounting doctoral programs and appreciate hearing additional perspectives.  I have a few questions regarding what you wrote, which I hope don't lead to far astray of the OP's question. 

If your major interest is anything other than capital markets research (hard core financial, really finance), then you want to be sure not to pick a school that only creates capital markets researchers.

I am under the impression that a majority of programs, especially the most competitive, are heavily focused on capital markets research.  Will selecting another sub field exclude an applicant from the best schools?  What are the current job market prospects for specialties other than financial?

If you get confused about the letter codes for the interest areas, just ask. Some of them are weird. For example. X is tax and T is accounting theory.

What is the distinction between Managerial and Cost Accounting?  In my undergraduate institution they are lumped together, however Hasselback lists them as separate sub fields.

Do you have a masters degree yet? If not, I'd say go get your MAc, preferably at a school other than your undergrad alma mater, then apply to PhD programs while finishing up the MAc.  If possible, go to a better school for your MAc than for your BS (of course, I have no idea, you might be at a top school for your BS, just giving generally useful advice here).

Will schools admit students without a masters degree?  The masters programs I have seen are very practice oriented and therefore seem like a diversion from, rather than a foundation for, a research degree.  If a masters is necessary, do you have any suggestions for programs that will allow masters students to get research experience?

Thanks!

[octoprof]

Octoprof, thanks for posting such a thorough explanation of how to examine schools.  I'm also considering accounting doctoral programs and appreciate hearing additional perspectives.  I have a few questions regarding what you wrote, which I hope don't lead to far astray of the OP's question. 

If your major interest is anything other than capital markets research (hard core financial, really finance), then you want to be sure not to pick a school that only creates capital markets researchers.

I am under the impression that a majority of programs, especially the most competitive, are heavily focused on capital markets research.  Will selecting another sub field exclude an applicant from the best schools?  What are the current job market prospects for specialties other than financial?

This is the point at which you need to start developing research skills.  This is a research question that has been addressed in the literature. An American Accounting Association committee or task force (I don't remember which) addressed this in a lengthy report (probably available online at AAA) and published a summary report in Issues in Accounting Education in the past year or two.  It goes into specialties other than financial.

Part of the reason you want to look at specialties of recent grads of programs you are interested in is that if you want to do financial accounting (which in most accounting scholars minds means capital markets only) then you can go to most programs (almost all either specialize in capital markets or put the most effort in your coursework into capital markets). If you want to do anything else (exclusively or in addition) research-wise, then some programs are not for you.  For a large portion of programs, you must do capital markets research, period.  So, pay attention to that when applying to programs and figure out whether you want to be narrowly focused on capital markets, somewhat focused on capital markets (but doing other things), or if you want to do just about any other area of accounting research).  Those three options are very different and should impact which schools look most attractive to you and which you look most attractive to as a prospective student.

If you get confused about the letter codes for the interest areas, just ask. Some of them are weird. For example. X is tax and T is accounting theory.

What is the distinction between Managerial and Cost Accounting?  In my undergraduate institution they are lumped together, however Hasselback lists them as separate sub fields.

Really, you need to ask Jim what he means by those. Since he lumps research and teaching into the same list, it's hard to be sure, but probably he's distinquishing them for teaching purposes (managerial being the intro stuff and cost being the upper level more advanced topics at most schools).   I teach both, for example, and no one's ever asked me if I prefer M or C or both there.  Use those as a guide, but not as a rule.

Do you have a masters degree yet? If not, I'd say go get your MAc, preferably at a school other than your undergrad alma mater, then apply to PhD programs while finishing up the MAc.  If possible, go to a better school for your MAc than for your BS (of course, I have no idea, you might be at a top school for your BS, just giving generally useful advice here).

Will schools admit students without a masters degree?  The masters programs I have seen are very practice oriented and therefore seem like a diversion from, rather than a foundation for, a research degree.  If a masters is necessary, do you have any suggestions for programs that will allow masters students to get research experience?

Just about all the masters degrees in accounting are practice oriented. However, if you don't know all that about the practice of accounting (Especially if you are not going to have accounting industry experience before the PhD), then you need to at least have the learning that goes with the MAc.  If you don't get a MAc, you will never even have the opportunity to be a CPA in most states, which matters to many of your prospective employers (I'm not saying you have to be a CPA, I am not a CPA, but I am saying don't close that door in appropriately).

If you don't have the MAc, most PhD program schools are not going to think you know enough about accounting to start learning how to research it, must less to decide which sub-fields are the most interesting to you from a research standpoint.

I don't know which schools accept students straight from the bachelors degree these days but I know when I was teaching PhD students not too long ago, my former university rarely admitted students without masters degrees. When I was a PhD student umpteen eons ago, I only recall one student out of nearly 20 who was admitted to our program without a masters degree during the years that I was there.


Just for the record, financial accounting research is a lot broader than just capital markets though many PhD programs will not train you beyond that.  It's a crying shame, it is.  Empirical archival research is only one type of research. You'll be better off if you get training in a broad range of research methodologies, regardless of which one you use in your dissertation. When you finish your PhD, you'll probably want to broaden your horizons beyond the narrow field and methodology you use in your dissertation work. 

[dr_stones]

I did the programmatic review of U. Oklahoma's business college, which has a simply outstanding school of accounting.  I'd highly recommend the doctoral program.

[naturegirl]

Octoprof,

Thank you for your replies.  I have a MTax from the University of Tulsa, my undergrad is from Montana.  Is the Mtax looked at as highly as the Mac?

I looked a little closer at the Kansas faculty interests.  There is two professors that have interests close to mine.  One professor is interested in forensic accounting and fraud, and the other is interested in Tax.  I really enjoy the fraud aspect of tax and I was wondering if when you get accepted to a program is it usually possible to work with two different professors?  Could I combine the areas of fraud and tax, or would I have to select one or the other?

Thank you for your time.
Allison

[octoprof]

Octoprof,

Thank you for your replies.  I have a MTax from the University of Tulsa, my undergrad is from Montana.  Is the Mtax looked at as highly as the Mac?

Yes, especially if your research interests are in tax or include tax.

I looked a little closer at the Kansas faculty interests.  There is two professors that have interests close to mine.  One professor is interested in forensic accounting and fraud, and the other is interested in Tax.  I really enjoy the fraud aspect of tax and I was wondering if when you get accepted to a program is it usually possible to work with two different professors?  Could I combine the areas of fraud and tax, or would I have to select one or the other?

Working with two professors is quite possible (only caveat is to be sure those two profs get along).  Combining fraud and tax sounds good to me.

I know some good things about the Kansas program but nothing specific about tax at Kansas.

You definitely need to find a PhD program with active tax researcher(s) for sure. Some PhD programs will not have any relatively recent graduates doing tax. That's a big red flag for you.

Identify the programs that interest you, then research the tax professors there and see what they have been publishing (i.e. using ABI-Inform, Business Source Premier, etc. and also their vitas if they are online).  That'll give you an idea what their research interests are and how active their research agenda is.

You can see a mostly up-to-date list of faculty at each program that might be helpful in your research here:
http://www.facultydirectories.com/AtgDir/A2005-2006.pdf

Tax, as I recall, is an area with expected high future demand for professors (doing that from memory so I could be wrong... I mentioned an article in my first post that looked at demand for the sub-fields).

As a general rule, you want to go to the best PhD program you can, and one that fits your research interests (i.e. has faculty you can learn from and work with).

Good luck!

octoprof

[accountingrocks]

If your major interest is anything other than capital markets research (hard core financial, really finance), then you want to be sure not to pick a school that only creates capital markets researchers.

I am under the impression that a majority of programs, especially the most competitive, are heavily focused on capital markets research.  Will selecting another sub field exclude an applicant from the best schools?  What are the current job market prospects for specialties other than financial?

This is the point at which you need to start developing research skills.  This is a research question that has been addressed in the literature. An American Accounting Association committee or task force (I don't remember which) addressed this in a lengthy report (probably available online at AAA) and published a summary report in Issues in Accounting Education in the past year or two.  It goes into specialties other than financial.

Part of the reason you want to look at specialties of recent grads of programs you are interested in is that if you want to do financial accounting (which in most accounting scholars minds means capital markets only) then you can go to most programs (almost all either specialize in capital markets or put the most effort in your coursework into capital markets). If you want to do anything else (exclusively or in addition) research-wise, then some programs are not for you.  For a large portion of programs, you must do capital markets research, period.  So, pay attention to that when applying to programs and figure out whether you want to be narrowly focused on capital markets, somewhat focused on capital markets (but doing other things), or if you want to do just about any other area of accounting research).  Those three options are very different and should impact which schools look most attractive to you and which you look most attractive to as a prospective student.
 

I should have crafted my question more carefully. 

From my memory of the article, while audit, tax and cost are discussed, other non-financial areas just fall under other.  I know it talks about short term projected PhD supply shortages and teaching areas in which schools expect to hire. However, it didn't reveal much about how Governmental, Not-for-Profit, Internal Audit, International, etc. research is perceived in the job market.  My concern is that selecting a fringe area at this stage and going to a school like the third one you described will severely limit my future career prospects.  I think that I would be successful at conducting capital markets research and be content doing so.  On the other hand, the questions that keep me awake at night are on the periphery of accounting.   I'll review the article again to see if I can glean additional information.

Just about all the masters degrees in accounting are practice oriented. However, if you don't know all that about the practice of accounting (Especially if you are not going to have accounting industry experience before the PhD), then you need to at least have the learning that goes with the MAc.  If you don't get a MAc, you will never even have the opportunity to be a CPA in most states, which matters to many of your prospective employers (I'm not saying you have to be a CPA, I am not a CPA, but I am saying don't close that door in appropriately).

If you don't have the MAc, most PhD program schools are not going to think you know enough about accounting to start learning how to research it, must less to decide which sub-fields are the most interesting to you from a research standpoint.

I'll have five years worth of education plus enough accounting credits to be CPA eligible in most states without a masters.  Given this situation would a masters or one-two years of industry experience be more valuable to most programs?

Thanks for your input!

[octoprof]

I should have crafted my question more carefully. 

From my memory of the article, while audit, tax and cost are discussed, other non-financial areas just fall under other.  I know it talks about short term projected PhD supply shortages and teaching areas in which schools expect to hire. However, it didn't reveal much about how Governmental, Not-for-Profit, Internal Audit, International, etc. research is perceived in the job market.  My concern is that selecting a fringe area at this stage and going to a school like the third one you described will severely limit my future career prospects.  I think that I would be successful at conducting capital markets research and be content doing so.  On the other hand, the questions that keep me awake at night are on the periphery of accounting.   I'll review the article again to see if I can glean additional information.

So, here's a suggestion, go full tilt into capital markets for your dissertation but take as much coursework and research work as you can that relates to other areas in which you have interests (and get teaching experience in both financial and an other area).  When you finish your PhD, you can sell yourself as financial/governmental or financial/international or whatever.  Most schools need folks who can teach (and perhaps research) govt/NPF/intl but most can't dedicate an entire line to one of those areas (really big schools can, but most cannot).

Another suggestion, let's all stop using the word fringe to describe major areas of accounting, such as not-for-prof, governmental, and international.  :o)  You want to talk fringe, talk artificial intelligence in accounting or accounting data mining or postmodern accounting or something that isn't big enough to have it's own course or courses. Those you named are sub-fields (i.e. whole accounting disciplines) and important ones, not the "fringe."

Just about all the masters degrees in accounting are practice oriented. However, if you don't know all that about the practice of accounting (Especially if you are not going to have accounting industry experience before the PhD), then you need to at least have the learning that goes with the MAc.  If you don't get a MAc, you will never even have the opportunity to be a CPA in most states, which matters to many of your prospective employers (I'm not saying you have to be a CPA, I am not a CPA, but I am saying don't close that door in appropriately).

If you don't have the MAc, most PhD program schools are not going to think you know enough about accounting to start learning how to research it, must less to decide which sub-fields are the most interesting to you from a research standpoint.

I'll have five years worth of education plus enough accounting credits to be CPA eligible in most states without a masters.  Given this situation would a masters or one-two years of industry experience be more valuable to most programs?

I think that depends on where you want to get your PhD and where you want to work when you complete your PhD. Some schools don't want PhD candidates without a masters.  Five years of education without a masters is still an BS or BA in most folks' minds.  If you are a CPA, that's a plus. If you aren't then having the hours but not a Masters and no CPA is still more-or-less the equivalent of just a BA or BA in the minds of most admissions committees.  That's the PhD program side.  It all depends on which programs you want to apply to and what your grades and GMAT scores are and so on. There's no one right answer. You can, of course, just ask the PhD programs that interest you if not having a masters is a handicap for your admission.

As to where you want to teach and research when you graduate, have a look at schools that interest you and see what their faculty are like. How many do not have a masters degree? How many are not CPAs (or CIAs, CMAs, CISAs, etc).  For some schools this isn't an issue for others it is.  It's hard to say which ones really care about these things because it varies widely.  Ole Miss, for example, doesn't like to hire any assistant profs who are not CPAs.  I don't know what their reasoning is, but this has been a fact there for many years. Right now the market is so good for new PhDs that these things might not matter on the hiring end for most schools.

Note that I am not advocating for or against having a masters before a PhD (those most folks do) nor having the CPA license before going for a PhD (I didn't), just trying to help you think about the options and the reactions you might get.

octoprof

[naturegirl]

Octoprof,

I was wondering if you could help me Dr. Hasselbacks codes for areas....

I am seeing S quite a bit, is this Systems of some kind?

I have no clue what V is....

It will probably make sense to me once you tell me.

Thanks in advance.

[octoprof]

Octoprof,

I was wondering if you could help me Dr. Hasselbacks codes for areas....

I am seeing S quite a bit, is this Systems of some kind?

I have no clue what V is....

It will probably make sense to me once you tell me.

Thanks in advance.

S is definitely systems

V I'll have to look up in the bound version of his directory because it doesn't ring a bell. I don't know if I have one here though...

*stumbles around the disaster that is her home*

OK, found an old one... (why isn't this on the website?)...  here you go:

A auditing
B behavioral
C cost
D computer
E education
F financial
G governmental
H history
I international
J ethics
K SEC
L business law
M managerial
N not-for-profit
O internal audit
P principles
Q quantitative
R CPA review
S systems
T theory
U controllership
V advanced
W social
X tax
Y agency
Z oil and gas

OK, those are a pretty weird mixture of accounting subfields and research areas and methodologies. Hardly representative of all the possibilities on research, but that's what he's used lo these many years.

[naturegirl]

I have a side question...not really related to the start of the thread...

I keep seeing professors refer to students as "hu".

What does it mean?

Thanks!