Vault, the ratings and rankings website, released a slew of internship rankings yesterday including one for accounting firms.
The most notable thing about the accounting-only list of 15 firms is that no Big 4 firms appear in the top 5. The best showing is PwC at #8, followed by KPMG at 9. Vault's rankings has the Bay Area's Frank, Rimerman at #1, followed by Elliott Davis Decosimo, Plante Moran, DHG and Moss Adams for the rest of the top 5.
What's also interesting is that in the Vault Top 50 Best Internships, that features all different kinds of employers, there are lots of accounting firms, with Frank, Rimerman and Elliott Davis both in the top 3. Plante Moran (11), DHG (14) and Moss Adams (15) are all in the top 20 and, by my count, at least 8 more accounting-ish firms in the rest of the list. The highest Big 4 firm is Deloitte Consulting at 23. It's not all sad faces for Big 4, however; they all appear on the most prestigious internships list, although they're well off the pace set by Google, Apple and Facebook.
I don't know if professors or Big 4 recruiters or anyone else out there are still suggesting that anyone securing less than a Big 4 internship is doomed to failure, but if they are, these ranking serve as a sanity check. If you're an accounting student and have been worried that the Big 4 firm won't look twice at you, good news: you're going to be fine.
[Vault]
