Admissions
The earliest opportunity to apply to the One-Year MAcc Program begins in January of the undergraduate junior year. Offers of admission are conditional on satisfactory completion of remaining undergraduate course work (including coursework equivalent to a specified sequence of Penn State undergraduate accounting courses) and obtaining a bachelor's degree before entering the One-Year MAcc Program.
The One-Year MAcc Program is only offered in a traditional classroom setting during daytime hours. Students can only begin the program during the fall semesters and cannot be a part-time student while in the program. We also do not offer the program online.
Preparing for the One-Year Program
The One-Year MAcc Program provides a point of entry to the accounting profession for students from a wide range of academic backgrounds. Alone, the thirty credit-hours of coursework provided by this program do not fulfill the "150-hour requirement" imposed by the licensing bodies of most states. The One-Year Program's prerequisites are the following Penn State courses (or their equivalents taken at another institution):
- ACCTG 211 - Introductory Financial and Managerial Accounting
- ACCTG 403w - Auditing
- ACCTG 404 - Managerial Accounting
- ACCTG 405 - Principles of Taxation
- ACCTG 471 - Intermediate Financial Accounting I
- ACCTG 472 - Intermediate Financial Accounting II
As part of the admission process, the Accounting Department will evaluate the applicant's completed and planned coursework to ensure that it satisfies the One-Year Program's prerequisites. Applicants to the program must present a plan for obtaining the coursework in accounting that constitutes the prerequisites for required MAcc courses.
Applicants should note that Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers the entire suite of One-Year MAcc Program accounting course prerequisites over Summer Session 1 (mid-May to end of June) and Summer Session 2 (end of June to mid-August) on the University Park campus. This way, most college graduates can obtain the One-Year MAcc Program prerequisite coursework by enrolling in Penn State summer session offerings.
