phdhope

I wouldn't mention it or anything else about your personal life for that matter in your SOP. The reality is adcoms will only care about how you function as a researcher while you are at their college. Unless a personal circumstance directly impacts that functionality in a substantial and significant way, I wouldn't mention anything personal.

YaSvobden is right though. Why did you go to law school? A PhD program will have at least some concerns that you would go into a PhD program and not become an academic the same way you went to law school and did not become a lawyer. The real question is: what type of research do you think you want to do? Unlike undergraduate programs and some graduate programs, PhD programs do not have the same curriculum or mentorship training. Knowing what your interests and career goals are will dramatically impact how well you fit at certain schools.

Hooray for the synthesis project! There are quite a few people who research fraud. Heck, there are even a decent number of forensic researchers. And most ideas would also be viable in the auditing context. I hesitate to offer suggestions for schools because we don't know much about your profile. Your GMAT score and grades from outside the US might make it difficult to get into a program that does auditing research. That said, it is hard to evaluate your publication experience. Like most, I suggest doing all you can to boost your CV and apply broadly!

South Florida could also be added to your list of schools. I will note that taxphd is right. AIS has never been popular and IS has taken huge hits in popularity over the last decade. If you are an IS person, you really should do an IS PhD. There is very little AIS research published in accounting journals. I don't know if doing an IS PhD is a good idea though. It probably has the worst job prospects out of all the business PhDs.

I would focus more on just learning the material than getting any certification. I think you've been given very good advice. I would definitely target the 700+ plus school list and some of the top schools, You could get lucky after all. I think the major decision now is finding which top, mid-tier archival financial school has the best research fit for you. That will take a lot of time reading through the papers. Good luck!

No, if you had passed the initial skype interview, they would have contacted you very shortly afterwards. It only takes a day or two to skype all the candidates a school is seriously considering.

Pitt and UMass have reached out to candidates in January, February, and March in previous years according to the Grad Cafe so I think it's a little early to think they're already done.

Theoretically yes. But I would first focus on getting into a top PhD program, getting placed at a top school, dominating and reshaping the field of accounting first before you set your sights on any loftier goals. I would not pursue a PhD in accounting if your goal is a Nobel Prize.

Yeah, I would probably focus on schools that have a lot of managerial experimental accounting research. Think Pitt, Emory, UT-Austin, Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Indiana and the like. Washington is a very nice school and Frank Hodge has done very well in research, but there are way too many PhD students wanting to work with him for you to realistically be able to do much work with him. Going to a school that has a good faculty to PhD student ratio is strongly recommended.

Agreed with all above. I also would point out that by tailoring your SOPs, you can show your knowledge about the school. Does the school have great placement? Do they have more resources (research subjects, databases, other things) for their PhD students? Is the school known for a particular culture? Does the faculty-student ratio appeal to you? If you are thinking behavioral, does the university have a great psychology department? Have you met or read the work of one of the faculty members? Are you interested in a type of research done at that school? In short, you should be able to answer a faculty member why you choose that particular school over other schools that do capital markets research (or even the numerous schools that do valuation research). I honestly don't think PhD applicants appreciate how different schools are from each other (or job market candidates for that matter).

I would urge some caution at looking at the placement of the graduates and making conclusions about the program. A much better way of thinking about it is seeing whether the PhD students were successful as researchers after the PhD program. Placement of course is dependent on how good the market thinks the person is but it also is dependent on the applicant's individual preferences. There is a really, really long list of people who could have gone to better schools but choose location, money, family, or other factors over program prestige. Another point of caution, you should consider how the program was 10+ years ago when the graduate graduated and the school they went to was like during that time period. Some schools have become drastically better or worse programs over time and simply using your current perceptions of schools might not adequately reflect how good or bad the placement was at that time. In short, I would be very reticent to use placement data to tell you much.

Yeah, schools in accounting normally only invite somewhere between 3-6 applicants per position. Now, there are schools in accounting that have lost more than 3-4 faculty members which have done 20+ interviews to fill multiple positions, but I can only think of three schools who have done that this past decade. I would also urge a little caution in thinking that school rankings do not matter and that job placement is perfectly meritocratic. As noted by henders, some schools will not consider you if you come from too low of a program. However, I think the real concern about going to a lower-ranked school is it is unlikely to have the faculty, the financial resources, and the program to turn you into a high-powered researcher. If it did, the school's reputation would be better, they'd have better placement, and their ranking would go up. I think we could also be confusing university ranking with research rankings and other rankings more pertinent to academia. Clearly at the end of the day, it is more about what your record is in research than where you went to school. But I think we should remember that your productivity is directly correlated with where you went.

Yep, all things equal, work experience, masters, and certifications help, but I'm sure you'll be competitive at many schools. That said, I think you really should be applying to finance programs. You likely haven't taken an accounting systems course, a course in auditing, a cost accounting course (beyond introductory material), advanced taxation course, or possibly all the financial reporting classes which will put you at a disadvantage in being able to converse with people in the field until you spend the time to learn the material instead of working on your PhD. I would strongly encourage you to apply to finance programs.

It is better to go to the US for your PhD and then transfer to Australia than the reverse or trying to stick in Australia.

I would say there is nothing wrong if you've read a lot about a topic and have an interest in a particular area to mention that in your SOP. My only caution is that you should be careful with how narrow you specify your interests. Use broad strokes, not precise research questions.