next »

[lsutigerfan]

I read a recent post that lists the following as "lower level" schools but does not define "lower level":

Florida State, Kent State, U of North Texas, UT-Arlington, UT-San Antonio and Texas Tech.

My question is what make these "lower level" programs ?

Is it that they are easy to get into (low GMAT) and "research-lite" in their rigor ?

[octoprof]

I read a recent post that lists the following as "lower level" schools but does not define "lower level":

Florida State, Kent State, U of North Texas, UT-Arlington, UT-San Antonio and Texas Tech.

My question is what make these "lower level" programs ?

Is it that they are easy to get into (low GMAT) and "research-lite" in their rigor ?

Those are not all lower level, although Kent State would be pretty low if you mapped out some hierarchy of the 90+ PhD programs in Accounting in the USA. UT-SA is probably too new with too few graduates to even categorize. U. of North Texas used to be well known for innovation in the breadth of methodological training its graduates receive. That is seen as a positive by some folks (who think accounting researchers should not be one-dimensionaly) and a negative by others (who think capital markets research is the only acceptable focus). I suspect, however, that is not so much the case now, unfortunately.

Try searching the forums for older threads on choosing accounting PhD programs and then read some of the many journal articles that rank them (usually, but not always, on research output of their faculty or graduates and occasionally on rank of initial placement of graduates). If you want more detailed advice, I'm happy to PM.

[lsutigerfan]

Thank you Octoprof for your response.  Others' thoughts regarding the quality of U.S. accounting PhD programs would be appreciated as well.

Octoprof - when you say not all of those programs are lower level, it implies that, in our opinion, some are and some are not, correct ?  I was a bit surprised to see FSU and Texas Tech on this list, which I would have thought to be pretty good programs considering the schools.

I'm wondering if accounting PhD programs, like all programs I suppose, are simply a matter of resource allocation.  For example, perhaps there are so many Texas schools on this list because the U of Texas-Austin and Texas A&M suck up all of the State's resource allocation for these types of programs, and as a result the 2 Dallas area schools, UNT and UT-Arlington and texas Tech are relegated to "lower level" status.

I did review these schools and see that UNT has some new asst. profs. out of South Carolina, Kentucky and Alabama, not exactly the most stellar PhD programs, but not bad right ?  Their chair is Don Finn, who prior to joining UNT was in charge of the PhD program at Arkansas (a notorious accounting PhD "mill" along with Kentucky and Alabama which might explain the new asst. hires).

Perhaps the "problem" with UT-Arlington is the structure of their program which according to their website only requires 9 hours of accounting doctoral seminars, whereas most of the other programs I've reviewed have up to double that.  They do have the standard 12 hours in a minor field and 15 hours in research tools. Their asst. profs. are from Texas A&M (a very good program) and Oklahoma ("lower level' program ?).

Is the "problem" with FSU the size of the program, they currently have 11 students in their accounting concentration, that's  a lot !  Also, according to their website, "Although there is no required minimum test score, successful applicants typically have GMAT scores of at least 600, and many have scores of 650 or higher."  GMAT of 600 is very low and 650 is usually the minimum for most programs right ?  FSU's asst. profs. are out of U of Florida and FSU (2010) itself, which seems a bit odd.

Texas Tech looks like a small program (again, perhaps due to lack of resources), they only admit 2 new students each year. 


So that's a lot of data I know, but we still haven't answered the question of just what makes an accounting PhD program a "lower level" program.  It's easy to find rankings based on publication output but I haven't been able to find any rankings on "level" of programs based on addmission criteria and research course work rigor.  Hence the discussion here, I would think this kind of ranking would only come from those "in the know" under the cover of forums like this.

And yes, please pm with your candid thoughts that perhaps cannot be made public here.  Thank you.



     

[octoprof]

Thank you Octoprof for your response.  Others' thoughts regarding the quality of U.S. accounting PhD programs would be appreciated as well.

Octoprof - when you say not all of those programs are lower level, it implies that, in our opinion, some are and some are not, correct ?  I was a bit surprised to see FSU and Texas Tech on this list, which I would have thought to be pretty good programs considering the schools.

I'm wondering if accounting PhD programs, like all programs I suppose, are simply a matter of resource allocation.  For example, perhaps there are so many Texas schools on this list because the U of Texas-Austin and Texas A&M suck up all of the State's resource allocation for these types of programs, and as a result the 2 Dallas area schools, UNT and UT-Arlington and texas Tech are relegated to "lower level" status.

I did review these schools and see that UNT has some new asst. profs. out of South Carolina, Kentucky and Alabama, not exactly the most stellar PhD programs, but not bad right ?  Their chair is Don Finn, who prior to joining UNT was in charge of the PhD program at Arkansas (a notorious accounting PhD "mill" along with Kentucky and Alabama which might explain the new asst. hires).

Perhaps the "problem" with UT-Arlington is the structure of their program which according to their website only requires 9 hours of accounting doctoral seminars, whereas most of the other programs I've reviewed have up to double that.  They do have the standard 12 hours in a minor field and 15 hours in research tools. Their asst. profs. are from Texas A&M (a very good program) and Oklahoma ("lower level' program ?).

Is the "problem" with FSU the size of the program, they currently have 11 students in their accounting concentration, that's  a lot !  Also, according to their website, "Although there is no required minimum test score, successful applicants typically have GMAT scores of at least 600, and many have scores of 650 or higher."  GMAT of 600 is very low and 650 is usually the minimum for most programs right ?  FSU's asst. profs. are out of U of Florida and FSU (2010) itself, which seems a bit odd.

Texas Tech looks like a small program (again, perhaps due to lack of resources), they only admit 2 new students each year.  


So that's a lot of data I know, but we still haven't answered the question of just what makes an accounting PhD program a "lower level" program.  It's easy to find rankings based on publication output but I haven't been able to find any rankings on "level" of programs based on addmission criteria and research course work rigor.  Hence the discussion here, I would think this kind of ranking would only come from those "in the know" under the cover of forums like this.

And yes, please pm with your candid thoughts that perhaps cannot be made public here.  Thank you.

You are making dozens of incorrect assumptions here, friend. Please attempt the research I suggested then PM me with questions. No one has published anything on admissions criteria to accounting PhD programs nor rigor of program as far as I know because that is not easily available info. much less easily quantifiable. Good luck! If you find it, I'm sure it'll be interesting.

You'll also find precious few accounting academicians on this forum, so the discussion you seek at the end of your post seems unlikely to flourish here.

[lsutigerfan]

Thank you again octoprof.  Not sure which of my assumptions you think are incorrect.  There are a lot of facts in there including the new asst. profs. at the programs, their size, etc.  The data you imply are not available are available and I have already reviewed all of it.  I have reviewed the avg. GMAT scores at 50+ programs, the avg. (and target) time to complete and the placement of the last 3 years of their graduates.  It's not rocket science to put together a picture of these programs and thus rank them accordingly.  I have also talked with several current students and recent graduates of many of these programs to ascertain their exact GMAT score upon which they were accepted (620 - 650) and in the case of those who have graduated how long it took them.  I was surprised at the "low" GMAT scores.

Additionally, I have reviewed several of the dissertations produced by the recent graduates of various programs.  What I found most interesting in this respect was the "quality" of some of these papers.  I define quality on 2 basis - (1) whether the paper lead to recent publication in referred journals and the level of those journals and (2) the general subject matter of the papers.  This approach can also be used to rank programs.  Those papers producing publications of course would lead to a higher program ranking.  What I found was that many of the papers in fact do not lead to publications and thus are really just exercises in research methodology practice.  I can tell you that this is a good way to rank programs.  It appears what the "lower level" programs do is reduce the # of required research courses and then let their students produce what they call a dissertation yet does not lead to any publications out of it.  Is that a "real" dissertation or again, just an exercise in application (a low level application obviously).

The other thing I noted is the incestious nature of programs, that is, if you want to place at a SEC school, do a program at a SEC school.  Of course you can always "drop down" a level for whatever reason, for example, go through a Big 10 program and place at a SEC school.  However, there is little "over achieving" in this respect, not many SEC grads end up at Michigan, Illinois, or Indiana for example.

[octoprof]

You seem to have it all figured out. Good luck!

[lsutigerfan]

Thank you again octoprof.