MAcc: Please Review my profile!!!!

[osuguy98]

Hi-

I would like some opinions on my profile and things I can do to improve it. I'm currently a junior at Ohio State majoring in accounting. I want to become a CPA, so I have to go acquire my masters in accounting. I plan on going to grad school in 2010. The schools I'm researching include: Ohio State, Univ. of Cincinnati, Clemson and Bowling Green. Preferably I would like to get into OSU! My gpa is not that great. Right now I have a 2.79 but I know I can bring that up to a 3.0 before I graduate. My freshman year I went to Ohio University and transfered to OSU with a 3.37. Will this make my gpa look any better? I was also on deans list my last quarter at OU. I don't have a lot of extracurriculars other then my work experience. I participated in habitat for humanity while I was at OU. Since transferring to OSU I have worked 20-30 hrs a week. I have been working since I was freshman in high school. I do electrical work with my dad. Does my work experience help make up for my gpa? I think I can get a 650+ on the GMAT. My goal is to score above 700. Thanks for taking the time and reading my lengthy post. I greatly appreciate any insight/help this great community can offer!

[Paxton Helms - Kaplan]

I'm not totally clear on what you're asking: are you planning on grad school in accounting or are you planning to do an MBA?

With that info, I'll have some better thoughts on your status.

Cheers--

Paxton

[osuguy98]

I'm planning on a masters in accounting for now. Possibly MBA later on in life. But my question is regarding on getting into programs for grad school in accounting.

[osuguy98]

Anyone have any good advice?

[Paxton Helms - Kaplan]

I am not really familiar with MAcc programs. The little bit that I know about them is that they are often tacked on at the end of an undergraduate degree (i.e., you do a bachelor's and master's in five years) and that they can also be specialized (i.e., tax, etc.).

To answer your question about whether your work experience can help explain your GPA, I can say that it might help a little bit but probably won't help terrifically much. Comparatively speaking, your GPA is pretty low; and, in terms of the value of your work experience, I think that that work experience is probably more valuable to an MBA program than to an accounting program.

All of that said...your best bet is going to be to find some accounting programs that interest you, review their websites for admissions data (there may even be a website that aggregates this data), and then see where you think you might be competitive.

I suspect that this is not all that you hoped for but this is really outside of my area of expertise.

Good Luck--

Paxton

[osuguy98]

Thanks for the info, looks like I have a little research to do. It also looks like the best thing to improve my profile is to do solid on the Gmat.

Thanks,
Nathan