Note: Applicable only to Western Canada
The choice: University of Saskatchewan’s Masters of Professional Accounting Program (MPAcc) or the Chartered Accountants School of Business (CASB).
I figured I’d mention this topic due to the deadline for MPAcc being on December 15, 2010 for enrolment for a May 2012 start date. It is important to apply early if you’re even remotely interested due to the fact that you’re applying nearly 2 years in advance. For CASB students there is a lot more flexibility about when you can enrol (you can enrol at anytime in the program), and you just have to follow the module registration deadlines, but if you miss out it probably won’t be much longer before the module is offered again.
It is an important decision to make, but will probably not affect your life at all a few years down the road, so don’t worry too much about it. The reason why I don’t think it will affect your life down the road is that both paths lead you to writing the UFE and obtaining your CA. Any smart employer will see right through the MPAcc designation on your business card as a boiler plate. The only chance it could potentially help you is if you were to go for a government union job and they have to pay their professional accountants with Master’s degrees more than those with accounting designations. Additionally if you ever wanted to be involved in academic accounting the program would be beneficial to these candidates as well.
What should you consider when choosing programs? If work/school/life balance (I say balance not flexibility or work load management), is important for you than I would highly recommend the MPAcc program. When you’re working late and you’re comrades are staying up late finishing their CASB assignments you can be going to the gym, hanging out with your friends (not your work friends, they’ll be doing CASB), spending time with family, or actually getting 8 hours of sleep a night. Come summer time, you travel out to Saskatoon (which is quite nice during the summer time) and you go to school and study for close to an 8 hour day (if you’re efficient) and you can have all your evenings and weekends free (for the most part). For those who love living life, they should seriously consider the balance that the MPAcc program provides.
Do you prefer learning on your own or in a class? CASB is a distance education program that is completed under the supervision of a facilitator and has one 3-day classroom session (face-to-face) once per module. MPAcc is all classroom based, with group work, assignments, tests, and is quite similar in structure to your undergrad education.
Can you get by with no salary? One major decision factor as well could be your cash flow. Are you able to survive 4-months without pay? Is your firm going to be paying for MPAcc? It is quite a bit more expensive than CASB running $7,000 a term x 2 terms for a total of $14,000. As well as 4-months without pay, you also have 4 months without earning months towards your CA designation. Depending on your goals this could be quite important as MPAcc will set you back approximately 6.5 months as compared to CASB. Also, you work hard September through to April and just when your schedule is going to ease up and allow you to complete your learning and development activities, plan your files for the upcoming yet, etc you are out of the office. You’ll miss the lightened work weeks, golfing with the firm and client and having summer students around to carry out your wishes.
In terms of what you’ll be learning it’s probably similar, people from MPAcc pass the UFE and people from CASB pass the UFE. It is hard to compare because no one (that I know of) has taken both CASB and MPAcc, as there would be no point. Please beware of the MPAcc program claim that they have a higher pass rate, this does not mean the program is better it just means that they have more restrictive entrance criteria than CASB. MPAcc isn’t extremely difficult to get into (although it is relatively competitive), but it is certainly harder than getting into CASB which basically anyone can get in to. Allowing anyone in is a great way to make money by selling people education, even if they aren’t capable of ever passing the UFE.
So either decision is a great one, just make sure it is the right decision for you.
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Thanks a lot for this topic! :) ~ very useful :)
ReplyDeleteIf a person successfully attained their CA designation via CASB, could they go back and get their MPAcc?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - glad you found the topic useful, let us know if you had any other questions related to this topic.
ReplyDeleteCommissioner Gabe - Anyone can attend MPAcc, so this would include those who already had their CA designation. Those who wanted to do CGA or CMA could as well. That being said nearly 100% of people in MPAcc are CA students due to the CASB exemption up to Mod 5.
I should have clarified for Commissioner Gabe - the requirements to get into MPAcc are the same as for CASB, being a University degree, and all the CASB courses (accounting, tax, finance, etc). So not EVERYONE can attend MPAcc, just those who meet the entry criteria.
ReplyDeleteMPAcc might be more difficult to get into, but remember that CASB students must pass all modules to write the UFE, so in the end, MPAcc and CASB students are on relatively similiar footing. So MPAcc is harder to get into up front while CASB has a self selection "weeding out" process, which I'd argue has a pretty high attrition rate. Wonder what the stats are for students beginning CASB compared to those actually writing the UFE (pass or fail).
ReplyDeleteDunno what the CASB stats were last year but MPAcc had a 90% pass rate.