Fact Sheet

The accounting department at the University of Richmond is well known throughout the country for producing especially high-quality graduates each year. After receiving an accounting degree from the University, many of our students pursue positions with international public accounting firms, major corporations, not-for-profit entities, or local businesses. Some students attend graduate school in business, law, or the liberal arts.

While pursuing an accounting degree at the University of Richmond, students are taught to understand accounting and its many complexities rather than being forced to memorize purely mechanical procedures. The entire accounting program stresses the theory behind accounting so that graduates will have the basis of knowledge to begin a lifelong career.

The mission of the accounting department of the Robins School of Business is to achieve and maintain a reputation for excellence in accounting education at the undergraduate level by combining superior instruction with relevant supportive intellectual inquiry and practical experience and to provide appropriate graduate experiences to enhance the goals of liberally educated professionals. The study of accounting (preparing and analyzing financial transactions) provides the skills students will need to enter the profession of accountancy.

Richmond's scores on national accounting exams are consistently in the top 10 of all business schools in the entire country. While proud of that, our main goal is to provide students with the ability to analyze a problem and arrive at a viable solution.

The accounting department attempts to work with each student as an individual. Class sizes are small and interactions between faculty and students are commonplace. While fulfilling the program's basic requirements, students can tailor their coursework to individual interests.

The demand for accountants in the job market is strong. Public accounting jobs attract approximately 70 percent of our accounting graduates. Other graduates pursue cost accounting, internal auditing, government accounting, and graduate school. If you can keep pace with the high standards of this rigorous major, you'll find the opportunities rewarding.

Sample list of graduate schools accepting recent accounting graduates:
College of William and Mary
New York University
University of Chicago
University of Illinois
University of North Carolina
University of Pennsylvania
University of Virginia

Sample list of companies hiring recent accounting graduates:
Accenture
Auditor of Public Accounts
Beers & Cutler
Cherry, Bekaert and Holland
Clifton Gunderson
Deloitte & Touche
Ernst & Young
Grant Thornton
KPMG
McGladrey and Pullen
PricewaterhouseCoopers
State Corporation Commission of Virginia
Veris Consulting

Research Focus

The main areas of research focus of the accounting department are:

  1. empirically exploring financial reporting issues in U.S. and non-U.S. settings, and 
  2. education/pedagogical research and case writing.