Abstract The article presents the author's reply on the question related to the evaluation of undergraduate education in accounting, in part, based on graduates' performance on CPA examination. Professor Allen G. Schick writes a persuasive piece about using the CPA examination as an objective benchmark for judging the success of a college or university's undergraduate accounting program. His story about parents who use historical pass rates on the CPA exam to help guide their child's decision to select the "best" school for launching a career in the accounting profession is indeed a very clever approach. According to the author, the moral of his story is flawed for a variety of reasons. Perhaps, most importantly, his story fails to explain that careers in the present-day accounting profession are no longer predicated on achieving success in the public accounting field. Those choosing to become management accountants, internal auditors, system auditors, financial managers or educators within the profession may be better served by choosing programs that emphasize other normatively important domains of knowledge in accounting.
Lawrence A. Ponemon (Fri,) studied this question.