Top 20 MBA in Accounting Programs in 2024

The best place to enroll for your MBA in accounting is at Harvard University. The school has a business department known as Harvard business school, where all your decisive moments define your education.  The program covers everything you need to know from case studies, field-based learning to international immersions, and culminations into a more powerful lesson. The curriculum creates a foundation in the fundamental practices of business in Marketing, finance, leadership, operations, negotiation, strategy, and more. When you enroll for your MBA accounting program here, you will be expected to join the rest of the students in participating in the same set of classes within your section of 90 colleagues, inclusive of FIELD that compliments personal reflection, global immersions, and case method learning with little hands-on group projects. You are allowed to take various combinations of courses –so long as they are five per semester. You also have an opportunity to cross-register for selected graduate programs.

Following closely at the second position is Stanford University. Stanford’s MBA accounting degree is relatively straightforward as the whole program is distinguished based on its inclusion and flexibility of global experience as its degree requirements. Like Harvard, the first year of your curriculum will involve sharing a typical class with all other students regardless of your major. The courses offer a wide range of choices in every discipline, designed and calibrated based on your experience, skills, and future goals. The General Management Perspectives initiates you into complex accounting problems. The second-year involves taking almost all your electives and focusing on accounting practices and principles. Your career journey is shaped, and the faculty creates a clear path on where you should be heading. The courses help widen your knowledge, experience, and perspective in specific areas.

If you are a math guru located in Cambridge, then you don’t need to look far to find an MBA in accounting school that will fit your bill because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the best place to be. The school has a lot to offer to its MBA students, such as helping them exercise their leadership skills, reinforcing their developing knowledge, and applying classroom learning to management challenges in organizations worldwide.  The school has also invested in facilities such as labs to help students focus on the subject areas like analytics, sustainability or company types, and geographic regions. The students are divided into six cohorts, with about 70 students in each from a wealthy mix of interests, backgrounds, and experiences. Students can study accounting principles and use that information to find out how investment decisions are made in managerial and corporate worlds. You also learn how to conduct an economic-based analysis of any accounting information from a senior manager’s view.

The school of business at Northwestern University is a great place to begin your accounting career. The school enables you to gain a firm grounding in fundamentals through the growth in the MBA curriculum. When you complete the required course, you are allowed to explore an extensive range of electives and 1001 experiential learning opportunities to test, learn, and build your skillset to meet professional goals. The rigorous curriculum covers the foundation for specialized and advanced work in professional fields and academic majors, as well as the fundamentals of growth. The two-year program comprises nine courses, including managerial economics, management strategies, operations, decision sciences, finance, marketing, management and organizations, and accounting. The accounting major is made up of two fundamental tracks; managerial accounting track and financial accounting track.

The MBA in accounting program at Columbia University in New York starts with a comprehensive curriculum that creates a necessary foundation for a successful accounting career. Some of the versatile programs like society curriculum, business, individuals, and master classes,have varying approaches in business education. Students gain a foundational understanding of the accounting principles as classes go beyond the basics. You will also discuss whether the International Accounting Standards Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a corporate accounting promulgated by regulators, is up to the mark. If you are looking to refine your expertise in accounting, you can take electives in accounting divisions such as Economics of strategic behavior, Accounting for Value, Earnings Quality, and Fundamental Analysis and Corporate Transactions & Financial modeling.

The University of Chicago has an MBA in accounting program in the Booth school of business. The program is designed to prepare students for global leadership in business. The academic program emphasizes exploring challenges, analyzing ideas, generating critical insights in implementing creative solutions. It is also flexible with only one mandatory course, which allows you to target the depth of skills and experience in accounting that potential employers are looking for. Accounting is typically known as the language of business. The concentration teaches you how to check the state of health and performance of an organization reflected in the income statement and balance sheet. It gives you the ability to evaluate how decisions are affected by resources and incentives quantifiably. For your individual career choices, you can choose between Taxes and Business Strategy, Accounting and Financial Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis and cost Analysis, and Internal Controls.

Looking for a program that provides you with an integrated perspective, particularly on general management? The University of Virginia through Darden school of business offers you precisely that and more!  The program comes with required courses that are necessary for business. They range from marketing and finance to leadership and accounting. The school curriculum is designed to provide you with depth and breadth while also giving you more time to discover and prepare for your career’s first fear interview.  There are also many other opportunities for students to expand their knowledge and practice inside and outside their classrooms through internships and elective courses. Students also learn how to navigate the financial reporting and society’s accounting systems and take a more in-depth look at the various factors that executives and managers have to consider when they confront complicated financial reporting and accounting challenges.

The University of Pennsylvania is one of the leading schools in business studies across the US. The Wharton School offers an MBA with an Accounting major, which helps students gain skills to evaluate and communicate corporate economic activities. The program teaches the formal system of exploring, collecting, organizing, and reporting financial data to make economic decisions. You also study how to manipulate the acquired data to shed light on the liquidity, financial status, the funds-generating and profitability capabilities. The MBA Accounting degree focuses on individuals who need and use accounting data. Most of the courses at the school focus on procedures, concepts, and applications with the view of helping students grasp how accounting information can be generated. They prepare students for careers where accounting data is widely used. To complete your major, you also need to complete the following Auditing, Financial Statement, Disclosure Analysis, Cost Management, and Financial Reporting Problems.

The MBA in accounting offered by Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College prepares students for a vibrant accounting career. The academic experience at the school is exceptional as it is designed to push students further than they think they can get and help them achieve more than they had previously targeted. From independent study and team-based projects to experiential and global learning opportunities, small scale research to practice seminars and case-based courses, the program was creatively crafted to ensure that students develop curious and creative minds to become future leaders. The curriculum offers rigorous coverage when it comes to disciplines and functional areas that complement and build each other such as Decision Science, capital markets, corporate finance, statistics, managerial and global economics, organizational behavior, marketing, personal leadership, communications, strategy, and operations.

The Ross MBA program at the University of Michigan requires analytic rigor throughout the curriculum. The program is designed to take you from the classroom to the field where you will handle complex challenges as well as unstructured and unanticipated problems. You also learn to think critically, make evidence-based recommendations, have clear logic when defending your solutions, and expect other people to have the same view. The school utilizes a project known as MAP, which is the critical part of the program that officially initiates first-year students into the business world for about seven weeks while working exclusively with an entrepreneurial, corporate, or non-profit organization to find solutions to the problems. MBA program in accounting creates an all-round student who is focused, dedicated and determined. You have a chance to explore a few electives when taking your first-year core and then wholly customize it when you enter the second year–to pursue your desired interests.

Duke University offers an MBA in accounting through the Fuqua school of business. Students can learn both managerial and financial accounting. The program is designed to prepare students for a vast range of accounting knowledge in strategy, business decisions, litigation support, commercial banking, financial position sign companies, and investment banking. The accounting course offers a solid foundation for reading, analyzing financial reports, valuation techniques, and the cost of drivers. In financial accounting, you will also learn to interpret and construct corporate financial reports while gaining a basic understanding of financial statements and use the data for decision making. On the other hand, managerial accounting focuses on the use of accounting information for a more significant corporate internal purpose. The course will teach you how to control operations and design management accounting systems.

An MBA in accounting at the University of California in Berkeley strictly focuses on general management fundamentals such as best practice and the latest business theories–from marketing to finance strategy and accounting. You also learn to manage and lead an entire enterprise, gaining a basic framework of quantitative, qualitative, strategic, analytical, and problem-solving skills. There are 51-semester units covered in the course work, 12 core courses, elective, and applied innovation.  The core curriculum prepares students for a strong foundation in business fundamentals such as finance, marketing, operations, and accounting. As part of the school’s applied renovation requirement, you will need to participate in a team performance module. You will also need to select among hundreds of elective courses, both of which may be within or outside the business school, to fulfill your 51-unit reminder.

It takes 21 months to complete an MBA in accounting at Cornell University. This inclusive of summer internships between the two academic years. The course starts in August with a two-week orientation activity that helps students bond and work together with peers, staff, and the faculty. The Cornell MBA combines various fundamentals with a solid emphasis on individual-focused study and applied learning, leadership development. You are expected to complete your bulky core courses within the first semester then start a career-focused study in the second year. Second-year concentrations are optional but offer broad and deep knowledge and marketability for you as you work on placing yourself for employment out there. Some of these concentrations include marketing analytics, financial analysis, financial investing, and corporate finance.

Kelley school of business at Indiana University offers an MBA in accounting specially crafted to mold students into great leaders and enable them to achieve their career goals through the two-year curriculum. The program lets students tailor their education level with global opportunities, leadership, and teamwork. Your first semester starts with an intense 15-week program that helps you build a robust, coordinated foundation in business fundamentals. When you understand the basics–probably the next semester, you will be allowed to specialize in what you desire and design your own academic schedule of electives while paying attention to your first year’s performance. Indiana University believes in thorough preparation, and that’s why your first year is necessary. This is a significant advantage in your career focus and internship. Accounting major involves analyzing reports, understanding where the numbers come from, and determining how those numbers can improve various key business elements such as investing, operating, and making financial decisions.

Want to pursue your MBA in Accounting in one of the oldest private research universities in Los Angeles? You may want to consider enrolling at the University of Southern California. The school sits at one of the busy frontier towns of Los Angeles–providing accounting students with something to look at and be happy about while calculating sums. The top-rated business surroundings also offer valuable insights into how global corporates work and naturally ignites students’ entrepreneurial spirit. Like the other universities, students start their major with the core foundational learning covering all necessary and essential accounting concepts to get students hooked into the system. Some of the basics taught during the first semester include; data analysis and modeling, accounting concepts, marketing, strategy, operations management, finance, and communications. The Analysis concentration and Financial reporting are vital for all students within the MBA as they serve two primary purposes; To prepare students for careers in Accounting and provide a background in financial analysis and accounting for students who wish to pursue careers such as investment banking, financial consulting, corporate finance and corporate analyst.

Carnegie Mellon University is a community-university with a mission to enhance networking and nurture leaders. The school offers MBA in accounting programs to all students, whether part-time, full-time, or online. Since its inception, the school has focused majorly on Accounting. Managerial and Financial Accounting I and II are mandatory core classes for MBA learners, but there are unique electives to choose from and blend with your major. The accounting course is designed to improve analytical skills, communication, decision making, strategy, technology, and high ethical standards.  Those who desire to have a role in communicating and analyzing organizational performance can concentrate on Accounting. It is also useful for those seeking careers in investment banking, general management, operations management, corporate finance, or consulting.

The University of Maryland’s business school–Robert H. Smith School of Business believes that accounting is a critical part of a core curriculum because it is at the center of any information system corporates use to make wise managerial decisions. Accounting provides managers with the necessary financial information for planning, controlling, and developing business strategies. The coursework at Maryland can be integrated with classes in economics, finance, and information systems. The major provides a solid foundation for making adequately informed decisions, while the electives train students in taxation, financial statement analysis, and advanced managerial accounting. If you have an acceptable section of electives, you can qualify to sit for the Certified Public Accountant CPA exam at the end of your MBA program. Additionally, if combined with other courses, accounting concentration can open many different jobs, such as consulting and accounting firms.

Most MBAs in accounting programs offered at the University of Scranton aim at passionate graduates seeking careers in accounting while the online programs aim at working professionals. Both programs emphasize the perspectives and skills needed to succeed in technology-based and local business environments. The 36 credit hours’ program includes core courses, cornerstone courses, capstone courses, and advanced elective courses. The school’s faculty ensures that each student receives a personalized assessment with unique areas of interest given more priority. It is well-rounded to cover all the necessary areas required in any business education. The school offers other specializations designed to complement and immerse you in critical functional areas of business, such as Operations management, marketing, marketing information systems, healthcare management, international business, finance, and business Analytics.

The MBA in accounting program offered by the University of North Texas at Dallas prepares students for real-world challenges by equipping them with essential business skills. The coursework is rigorous, particularly for graduates who wish to take a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam. The rest of the program offers you a thorough understanding of what organizational finances are all about and provides a broader perspective of financial reporting, strategic investment decisions, analysis, and risk identification. MBA in accounting program combines management practices and business acumen with a concentration in advanced accounting. The award-winning faculty provides personalized teaching, tools, and skills to help students grow in their careers. They also help students acquire problem-solving skills to help them find solutions to complex business problems, irrespective of the industry you decide to pursue. There are also other areas of specialization for you to choose from based on your interests, such as taxes, auditing, public or corporate accounting, and many others.

The University of Hartford welcomes all students who wish to charge the dynamic and ever-changing business world to enroll at their campus at Barney School of Business. The school is student-focused as the faculty focuses on equipping students with knowledge, values, and skills to become successful leaders in their selected careers. Most of the taught concepts are applicable in all kinds of the organization, including large corporations, non-profit organizations and family owned businesses. The MBA program is designed to create a pathway for unlimited job opportunities. At the University of Hartford, the 12 classes take 36 credits. There are nine required classes in disciplines such as management and accounting. The three remaining are electives in your concentration.