mikejeff wrote: I saw a stat a few weeks back that said that, a few years ago, 70 percent of hires at Big 4 firms came from in-house internship programs.  I don't know if this figure is first-year hires or total hires.  Now that number has climbed above 90 percent.  I knew that most Big 4 internship hiring basically takes place a year in advance - interview during the spring for next spring.  But more and more national, regional, and even local firms are following suit.  The only firms recruiting on my campus this fall for spring internships were small, local one-office firms.  There were a number of big-name corporate internal audit internships, but that's it.  The hiring time line seems to have always favored taking on undergrads.  Now that they're hiring fewer people, that means a lot less room to get in outside of internships, which, again, are not a good fit for the time horizon of most MAcc students.  During some company visits to Beta Alpha Psi meetings, our faculty adviser has pointed out that we also have plenty of bright, hard-working grad students who don't fit in with any of the presented hiring programs.  The recruiters have basically just shrugged and said that they're not doing much direct hiring right now.

It depends on the firm.  According to this site, the number of new hires who were previously interns ranges from 60% all the way to 91% for KPMG. 

http://bigfouralumni.blogspot.com/ 

So it you want the opportunity to do an internship, which a Macc does not due to its short length, I would look into MBA programs so that you can intern between your first and 2nd year.