By NORMAN ANAWAT
The good curriculum, the quality of faculty and students, and the support from former students make the School of Accountancy and Information Systems at BYU the third best accounting school in the nation.
These factors, combined with strong moral and work ethics, make the students highly competitive in the job market, Steve Albrecht, department chair, said.
Albrecht said the school has the model curriculum for accounting programs in the United States.
In 1994, 70 different schools came to study the curriculum at the school, he said.
There was also a conference funded by the Accounting Education Change Commission where professors came to learn about the accounting program at BYU, he said.
“Our program is on the cutting edge,” Kathy O’Brien, academic advisor, said.
The school received a grant from the AECC to do some innovative changes, which has led to high rankings, she said.
“We have always been a good program and it is getting better all the time,” Albrecht said.
The school developed an integrated core with the aid of the AECC. The integrated core combines topics that used to be taught in separate courses, O’Brien said.
In these classes, the students take real life situations and approach them from different angles, she said.
Instead of going to five or six different classes, the students go to one class which meets four days a week for three hours, she said.
The professors come and approach the topic of the day according to their individual teaching perspective, she said.
Sean Morris, a 25-year-old, majoring in accounting, from Littletown, Colo., said the school gives a broad preparation in problem solving.
Students are well prepared when they graduate from the accounting program, Morris said.
“One thing our program does is group work and this develops camaraderie in the group,” Morris said.
Another reason for this high rankings is the school outstanding faculty, Albrecht said. “They could teach anywhere in the U.S.,” he said.
O’Brien agrees and added that the faculty is very dedicated and cohesive. “They work well together,” she said.
The students are also part of the school’s good reputation among accounting schools. In the last three years the average GPA of a student applying for the school was 3.63, Albrecht said.
O’Brien said the program has exceptional students because it is a competitive program to get in.
Former graduates are also supportive of the school, contributing financially, coming and talking with students in the accounting program, O’Brien said.
“We are in the National Recruiting List of major firms,” Albrecht said. The accounting school is one of the four main schools the Big-Six accounting firms recruit, he said.
Arthur Andersen & Co, Deloitte and Touche, KPMG Peat Marwick, Coopers and Lybrand, Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young hired around 220 graduates in 1995, Albrecht said.
“In addition other firms hire as well, which means that basically all the students get hired,” Albrecht said.
The job market for accounting majors is not shrinking, and for BYU it is specially good if compared to other schools in the country, Morris said.
The firms do not look only for academic skills, Albrecht said.
Ability to speak a foreign language, leadership and salesman skills that returned missionaries have are qualities that also help in the hiring, Albrecht said.
“There is something about BYU students in general that makes them very attractive to recruiters,” O’Brien said. “Things such as integrity, honesty and work ethics.”
The students also have multiple job offers, which enables them to negotiate a salary and to choose where they want to go, she said.
The School of Accountancy and Information Systems was created in 1976 and since then has enjoyed this great acceptance rate, O’Brien said.
“It is a combination of a strong program with strong moral values”, O’Brien said.
There are two programs in the school. The undergraduate program takes four years and the masters program takes five years, Albrecht said.
