4getmenot

With all due respect to YaSvoboden, I would think Michigan is a better choice. For reasons you conjectured, you should not interpret Michigan's ambivalence about your PhD plans as a signal that they won't seriously consider you for their own PhD program or support your PhD application with great letters. And as you admitted, all else being equal, a Michigan M.Acc. would improve your PhD application packet considerably. Also, since many PhD courses are offered bi-annually(or less frequently), you might want to consider which courses are actually scheduled. Feel free to PM me to continue that discussion. Disclaimer: I don't have any affiliation with either school. Just a current student at a school ranked equally or better, although it's been a few years since I went through the admissions process.

I am guessing you want to do empirical asset pricing(and not corporate finance)?

Accounting theory researchers are regularly hired out of Econ PhD programs, it's certainly not rare. In general, the job market success will depend the extent to which the Econ student will have worked with people in accounting.

I vote for another degree. It might help if you told us what Computer Science II teaches but it's probably only marginally more useful than Design of Experiments in Stats (which might have some borderline relevance to corporate finance research). My understanding is that ad com's won't necessarily scour through transcripts for every applicant. So if you don't have the kind of profile to grab their immediate attention such that your transcript warrants a further look, then a Stats degree might just make the difference.

Without knowing your research interests, I would say Northwestern over Rochester(and OSU). I wouldn't necessarily call it a top 5 or even a top 10 program in archival research but I agree with EE570 that Rochester had its powerhouse days but that was some years ago.

Ok fair enough. I stand by my original comment that the OP's profile(assuming he has stellar LOR's) would be highly competitive at ~n schools. Maybe I previously thought n=10 when it's really closer to 5 or 6. However, I think when those 5 or 6 are some of the top ranked programs in the country, phdhope's claims were a little on the extreme side and painted an excessively bleak picture for the OP. A couple other comments on phdhope's comments: I assume those 130 CV's came from the Miami recruiting conference? If so, that would be a classical endogeneity problem if you are drawing empirical inferences. The vita's from that conference are far from representative of the overall distribution of candidates on all dimensions. I'm not sure that being only willing to teach financial accounting and not in a position to teach tax makes a huge difference. Some MBA curriculums might have an elective here and there on tax but I would think the probability of being matched to teaching tax would be small, irrespective of your actual qualifications. Finally, to address OP's concern about not finding a job, I think I have already made the case that not having a traditional accounting background in no way precludes you from doing well on the job market. Of course, I agree with some previous comments that, all else (ranking of your PhD school, advisor, your own research output) being equal, having some traditional accounting training will help. Again, I would not call that a necessary condition. Beyond that, it would be way too early to stress over your job market prospects. The faculty that decide to admit you have a significant stake in your job market performance and it would not be incentive compatible for them to admit you if there is more than negligible probability, ex-ante, that you would not be employable. I would put all my focus on getting into the best school possible.

I am afraid that I would have to respectfully disagree with almost everything in this paragraph. Hopefully someday you will get a chance to visit my school as well as the schools where our recently recruited faculty come from. You will generally find that less than 10% of students have the kind of background you describe and less than half have any kind of work experience. Just to relate a personal account from my admit day experience... I was very conscientious about making a professional impression on the other students in my cohort since they were probably going to be colleagues for the next five years. I was taking a sip of water when one classmate admitted that they did not know what a MD&A was (the exact details were different, out of concern for privacy). I was so shocked that I breathed in half a gulp of water and caused quite a dramatic choking incident in front of all the faculty and students, so I ended up failing miserably at making a good first impression. Now two years later, this individual has out performed me in most of our classes (although I recognize that grades are only marginally correlated with research success). Most of all, I have gained a deep appreciation for this person's research ability and the contributions that they can make to the accounting literature. Yes, the person is still struggling to figure out what this accrual business is all about but I have no doubt they will get there by the time we graduate. The final comment I have to contribute to this discussion is that not all of the curriculum at a business school involves teaching debits and credits. Some people might be more suited towards teaching financial statement analysis and/or valuation courses that are part of most MBA curriculums.

At our school the issue of accounting background as a prerequisite has been dissected and analyzed ad nauseum. I mostly agree with rsnwbqz with the additional disclaimer that even those who get accepted with no accounting background are expected to be willing to pick up some institutional knowledge during their PhD (through MBA classes, for example). In other words, the students who have a "I have never studied accounting and I am too good to learn it" attitude would not fare well. The caution is that the four or five top-tier schools with no expectation of an accounting background and with a preference for an Econ masters rather than M.Acc. tend to accept students with 750/760's as a median. Of course a 730 candidate could still fare very well when the profile is complemented by recommendations from faculty who regularly publish in top finance/accounting journals. Not a whole lot of Canadian universities have such faculty so the OP should double check. Also, what does the OP mean by "discourse"? Do you mean "disclosure"? Feel free to pm me also for clarification.

Ray Ball's work gave birth to modern accounting research (and by extension, accounting PhD programs). I would not take this as a sign that you can be the next Ray Ball by doing a PhD in Econ.

This is very touching...I hope you put this into your SoP. It seemed to have helped me...

Still top notch, top five probably.

Vermont and Delaware don't require 4 year degrees, is this what you are referring to? Forget tenure, you would have to go really far down the rankings list to find an accounting program that supports PhD students pursuing strategy/MIS research.

MWG as well :)

I went back and looked at your profile. I don't think you will have any problems with funding. Your total package should be between 25K to 32K, maybe bottom out at 20K to be really conservative. I know that is a big range but the bottom and the top would represent the most affordable and the most expensive cities to live in so there shouldn't be a lot of variation in your quality of life. The split between fellowships and RA/TA will depend on which school from your list you get yourself into. For example, Cornell's package will be mostly fellowships while Colorado might expect you to teach year-round (of course there is a big range in between).

Actually, at most institutions, this is exactly what will happen. What you are describing sounds more like something that would happen at the University of Utopia.