So you’re thinking about getting your PhD in accounting. Naturally, you want to attend the best accounting PhD program out there, because this will be the most important degree of your career. The students who graduate from the best schools will have the best opportunities for finding work at high-paying universities and getting more research published. The more research you publish, the more likely you are to get tenure.
There’s no substitute for the best education possible, but choosing the best accounting PhD program for you is a little trickier than just applying to the top ranked programs overall. When you get a PhD in accounting, you’ll end up choosing a specialized research area. While it is possible to make your final decision after beginning your PhD, not all universities offer all of the specialties.
Here’s an example: one specialized area is experimental audit research, which focuses on studying the psychology and behavior of auditors. This may be a fascinating area for you, but according to a top professor in this branch of study, it is not commonly found among all accounting PhD programs.
Before we get to the rankings, let’s cover a little bit of background information on the various research specialties pursued by accounting graduate students and researchers.
There are two major variables to consider when looking at accounting PhD specializations:
Topic
The main subject areas that accounting researchers study are: Accounting Information Systems, Audit, Financial, Managerial, and Tax. There are some areas of study that fall outside of these major categories, but these are the most common topics. You may already have a good idea of which categories you may or may not be interested in. You may find taxes fascinating, and decide to pursue research in how changes in tax laws affect the behaviors of taxpayers. Or, you may know that tax is just not your thing, but studying financial accounting would be far more up your alley.
Once you narrow down the topic you’d like to specialize in, think about what methods you think you would enjoy for conducting research. The four main methods of conducting accounting research are: Analytical, Archival, and Experimental. Again, there are methods that fall outside of these main categories, but these are a good place to start. Experimental means that you set up experiments, to test a theory. This may be used more when studying individual people’s behavior. The more common method of accounting research is Archival, where the researcher uses past published financial data to see how financial results were affected by the variables they are studying. Analytical research involves setting up mathematical models, based on assumptions, to make predictions about how changing certain variables in the model would affect outcomes.
Now, on to the rankings! According to BYUaccounting.net/rankings, the following are the top 5 accounting PhD programs for each topic.
Accounting Information Systems
1. Kent State University
2. University of Tennessee (Knoxville)
3. Arizona State University
4. Drexel University
5. Texas A&M; University
Topic: Audit
1. University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
2. Drexel University
3. University of New South Wales
4. Temple University
5. University of Missouri
Topic: Financial
1. University of Michigan
2. University of Chicago
3. University of Washington
4. University of Pennsylvania
5. University of Arizona
Topic: Managerial
1. Stanford University
2. University of Pittsburgh
3. University of Texas (Austin)
4. Catholic University of Leuven
5. Harvard University
Topic: Tax
1. University of Arizona
2. University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
3. University of Washington
4. Arizona State University
5. University of Texas (Austin)
Be sure to do your research carefully when choosing which accounting PhD programs to apply to. This is a bigger decision than deciding where to study for your undergraduate degree! Hopefully this list will give you a place to start your research. Best of luck!
Sources:
http://www.byuaccounting.net/rankings/
