For its win, the accounting department of the University of Virginia received $25,000 and each student team member $3,000. Accounting departments from the University of California – Santa Barbara and Bentley College received $15,000 and $10,000 for their respective second and third place finishes.

"KPMG's audit case competition challenges students to sharpen the critical skills they will need in the professional working environment," said Henry Keizer, vice chair - Audit, of KPMG LLP and global head of Audit, KPMG International. "We salute the UVA team on its win and congratulate all of the participating students, faculty and advisors who participated in the competition."

Roger Martin, faculty advisor and associate professor of commerce at University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, said the competition was incredibly challenging and a great team building experience for students. 

"This is a great competition," he said. "The students learn so much about accounting and technical issues but they also learn how to get together as a team, how to rely on each other, and how to delegate. I think there are enormous intangible benefits from this experience that they may not even realize now but when they get into a work situation they will remember the experience they had here and it will help them."

The University of Virginia's winning team was comprised of second year student Andrew Serafin; third year student Margaret Fowler; fourth year student David Myers, who will be joining KPMG's Norfolk office in the fall; and fifth year student Catherine (Lyn) Mandigo, who will be joining KPMG's Washington, D.C. office in the fall.

Student teams from 27 top accounting schools competed in the national five-week competition sponsored by KPMG International's Global Services Centre and the KPMG Foundation. Student teams completed a series of challenging audit tasks and used a Web-based application that simulated a series of interactions between a KPMG audit partner and members of the student engagement team.

Five student teams were selected as finalists and came to New York to present their findings and answer questions posed by a panel of judges that included scholars, audit committee members and KPMG partners. In addition to the University of Virginia, the University of California – Santa Barbara and Bentley College, the other finalist teams represented the University of Georgia and the University of Illinois at Urbana –Champaign.

According to UVA's Mandigo, presenting the case was "a little intimidating," but the competition was "a great learning experience" and good preparation for life after school.

"We really had to figure out what to research and how to do everything all on our own so I imagine this is what it will be like in the real world," she said.

The National Audit Case Competition is one of many educational events sponsored by KPMG each year. Others include case study competitions sponsored in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA), as well as the Future Diversity Leaders and Fast Forward leadership development programs conducted each summer.