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29 Apr 2005, 17:16
To get into a top 10 US school in accounting, you need to have a very good score on the GMAT (probably over 740). A background in economics or advanced math/statistics will greatly help (probably more so than good LORs).
As for good schools in accounting, there a few studies (search for Lawrence D. Brown or Larry M. Robinson on SSRN.com) that rely on publications, placement and citations. No ranking is perfect but this is a good start. Here's the top 10 from Robinson and Adler (2002):
1. Stanford
2. Wharton
3. Harvard
4. Rochester
5. Cornell
6. Yale
7. Carnegie Mellon
8. Chicago
9. Michigan
10. NYU
This is based on mean # of citations from 1988 to 2002 by faculty members who were at each school in 2002. This kind of "adjusted for size" ranking puts bigger teaching schools like Michigan (and NYU, I guess) at a disadvantage since these schools will invariably attract some faculty who will only teach. Also, faculty members tend to move a lot (especially untenured) so this type of ranking is doomed to be flawed sometime, but still it's a start.