STUDENT NEWS
MACC The 14th cohort class of the Master of Accounting program (our seventh cohort of the new 2 in 2 MAcc program) graduated in May 2025. The 2 in 2 program sees students earning their MAcc degree and sitting for the CPA exam in two semesters. Meanwhile, the upcoming 15th cohort currently has 36 students enrolled. Through the 2024-2025 peer and professional mentoring programs, students were mentored by CAEs and Corporate Tax heads from firms including UPS, Genuine Parts Company, Deloitte, Delta Air Lines, Forvis Mazars, Inspire Brands, and McKinsey & Company. In August 2024, the SOA and MAcc hosted the third MAcc Networking Luncheon. This event allowed students to engage with 25 professionals from corporate and public accounting firms in Metro Atlanta and hear from a panel of three professionals discussing the most challenging issues facing the accounting profession. The MAcc has achieved nearly 100% job placement for the Class of 2025. Additionally, this class of graduates had great CPA Exam success. For this cohort, we had the highest pass rate on any portion of the exam with the new Discipline exams. We had 12 people take Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP) exam and 23 take Information Systems and Controls (ISC), and in both groups the pass rate was 83%. This year we averaged 86% passing at least one part during the program and we will continue tracking their
PH.D. During the 2024-2025 academic year, we had five PhD students at ABD status and four new admissions. One of the five ABD students, Katie Harris, successfully completed and defended her dissertation. Katie also received the most outstanding PhD student for Coles College. The remaining four ABD students are scheduled to defend their dissertations in the new academic year while the newly admitted students successfully completed their first year of study. The focus of the SOA PhD program is on audit research and according to BYU, our PhD program consistently ranks among the top-100 programs in the world across all and more recent years ranked. Some of the journals our graduates have published in include Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, Accounting Horizons, Journal of the American Taxation Association, Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Accounting & Public Policy, International Journal of Auditing, and Issues in Accounting Education. In Spring 2025, a manuscript based on research conducted and published in 2024 in Issues in Accounting Education while PhD students were in the program was nominated by American Accounting Association (AAA) as one of the top- 5 papers for the best paper award: Colson, C. J., D. McWilliams, D. Oliver, D. S. Sharma, and C. Witherspoon. 2024. “The Ledger Does Not Balance for All: Experiences of Underrepresented
Individuals in Accounting Academia.” Issues in Accounting Education 39 (3), pp. 7-30. MBA – ACCOUNTING CONCENTRATION The KSU MBA–Accounting Concentration continues to grow, with 16 students currently enrolled and one recent transfer into the program. Designed for working professionals, this concentration offers a flexible path to CPA certification without requiring a career pause. Students pursuing the accounting concentration will gain the credit hours and coursework needed to become eligible to sit for the CPA Exam. With the program’s recent approval, efforts are now underway to explore a pathway to IIA certification, further expanding its professional value.
progress (these rates are based on students who continued to inform us of their CPA status or where we checked their licensure status via CPA Verify).
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KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTANCY
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