Wake Forest vs. UNC

Big 6? Holy crap that's old. Way before the recession hit. Probably before any of the people even enter high school. The Big 6 used to be Andersen Worldwide, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, Coopers & Lybrand, KPMG Peat Marwick and Price Waterhouse. Of course, now it's the Big 4 with andersen imploded during the enron scandal in 2002. Pricewaterhouse merged with coopers and lybrand in 1998. Doing good time wake might do a 90% and feed into the big 4 but i seriously doubt any school has that high of an employment statistics now.

Thanks for the responses guys, I ended up choosing Texas though so it's a moot point but might still be helpful for those making this decision.

Ha ha, yes I am old! My point is that UNC or Wake is going to put you in front of the big accounting firms and you will have no trouble passing the CPA exam......cannot ask for more than that in any economy. Cannot go wrong with Texas though...good luck.

I was accepted into Wake Forest's MSA program and UT's MPA program and I'm still trying to decide which one to finally go with. My main criteria is choosing the program that has the best instruction and will provide me with the best preparation for the CPA exam. I feel that Wake Forest has the better teachers but I could be wrong. Can anyone provide his or her opinion on this?

Wake has lead the nation in pass rate 6 times. A few years ago it was around 83% but I think UT was in the 70s. I don't think you could go wrong with either of them. I am naturally biased as I graduated from Wake and am entering the MBA program in the fall.

When I was at Wake, it was very tough. Many of our accounting exams were 3 hour exams and you had to know you stuff just to get a C. I was a B/C student and passed the exam on my first attempt.....and the reason why so many passed was because the cpa exam was easier than what we were used to.

A big factor is your decision should be where you want to end up working and living after graduating. East coast go with Wake....if you want to stay West go with Texas. Just my thoughts.....

wfucpa, thanks for the great info and advice. Want to ask you how you would rate the WFU professors and their ability to teach, i.e. pass on information to their students in an understandable way. Also, how would you rate, if you have knowledge of, the career placement for accounting graduates in the private equity and investment banking sectors?

I have long been out of the accounting program at Wake and most of the professors that I had are probably gone. But, I thought they were really good....they were just tough. As far as career placement...when I was there it was all about public accounting....big 4 and large regional mainly. I cannot speak for how it is today but I would say that it is probably very similar to the way that it used to be. Those questions could probably be better answered throught the program itself. I found my MBA admissions guy very helpful.....I would talk to them about career placement.

wfucpa, thanks again for your info and your suggestion. I'll do as you say and learn as much as I can. I want to make a final decision by next week. I'll post what I learned and what I decided. Thanks again!

UNC. Hands down. Especially if you're an NC resident....