MPAc Admissions Information

Upon Provisional Admission to UC San Diego

All admitted, international applicants are required to complete and submit a WES Course-by-Course evaluation. Please go to wes.org to create your account. You will be prompted to input your academic history, and will then be provided with a list of documents required for the completion of your evaluation. Applicants with academic work in progress who expect to complete a degree program before the intended date of enrollment at UCSD must provide evidence of degree conferral and a final academic transcript as soon as they are available.

Please do not send official documents to the Graduate Admissions Office. As an international applicant, you must submit a WES Course-by-Course evaluation via WES once you have been admitted for your admission to UC San Diego to be finalized.

Having all of the accounting prerequisites will better prepare you for our program and make you eligible to take the CPA exams, courses earned through Coursera are not accepted. Courses must be completed from a regionally accredited University or an extension program such as UCSD Division of Extended Studies. 

If you hold a bachelor's degree in accounting from a university outside the United States, you are eligible for admission to our program. We recognize that some of the six prerequisite courses may not be available internationally, so you are welcome to complete those courses separately.

Prospective students must have a solid accounting foundation to be a competitive applicant for the Rady MPAc program.   Foundational accounting courses ensure prospective students are prepared for the academically rigorous MPAc program and the accounting industry’s competitive hiring process.

By the start of the program, applicants must have successfully completed a minimum of 24 quarter units (18 semester units) in accounting including the following (or their institution’s equivalent of):

• Managerial Accounting
• Financial Accounting
• Intermediate Accounting I
• Intermediate Accounting II
• Auditing
• Federal Taxation

 Applicants with non-accounting undergraduate degrees and less than 24 quarter units (18 semester units) in accounting will be considered on an exceptional basis. Applicants who do not meet the accounting foundational courses listed above at the time of application must be on track to complete the pre-requisites prior to the program start.

Tell us about an obstacle or challenge you encountered in the past few years and what did you do to overcome it?

The GRE/GMAT test requirement is optional for the Master of Professional Accountancy program. Applicants are welcome to include valid GRE or GMAT test scores at the time of application submission.  If you choose to include a GRE or GMAT test in your application, you should be aware that your application will be considered incomplete and will not be moved forward or reviewed until official scores are received from the testing institution and verified by the Rady Admissions Office.

• The code for the GMAT is 3NS-ZK-33
• The code for the GRE is 4836

The Rady Admissions Office encourages all applicants to prepare appropriately for these examinations. Study can be done individually, in classroom environments, or online. Though the Rady School does not endorse any particular test prep organization, the following are organizations that have been utilized successfully by previous applicants:

• GMAT Mini-Quiz
• UC San Diego Extension
• Kaplan Test Prep
• Manhattan Prep
• Princeton Review

• TOEFL scores are to be sent from ETS to institutional code 4836. Minimum scores for TOEFL: 90, however, competitive applicants’ average scores are above 100.
• IELTS scores are to be sent directly from the British Council or test-taking institution. The minimum IELTS score is 7. Select University of California, San Diego as the institution and have them released electronically to Rady/UC San Diego
• PTE test takers must select the University of California, San Diego as a score recipient, then submit a copy of your scores directly to our Graduate Admissions office at: Rady School of Management, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive #0553, La Jolla, CA 92093-0553. Include your registration ID number and exam date on your application. Official scores will be verified online. The minimum PTE score is 65.

Demonstrated proficiency in the English language is required for all international applicants whose native language is not English. Non-native English language speakers may be exempt from this requirement if they have earned or will be earning a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree with grades of B (3.0) or better from either:

• A regionally accredited U.S. college or university where English is the sole language of instruction, or
• A foreign college or university which provides instruction solely in English. You may verify whether your institution meets this requirement by looking up your institution in the IAU World Higher Education Database (WHED). If English is not the sole language of instruction listed, if no language is listed at all, or if the institution does not appear on the WHED website, you are required to submit English proficiency exam scores. No other documentation (e.g. letters, language certificates, school websites) may be used in place of WHED as a means to obtain an exemption from the English proficiency requirement.