The purpose of this study was to compare three classes of students enrolled in a traditional Principles of Accounting course to their distance learning counterparts. Both groups were exposed to the same teaching material and were taught by the same instructor. Both groups were given equal access opportunities to the instructor beyond class meetings. The groups were compared on items such as final course grade, attrition rate, behavior types, and demographics. There was no significant difference in final course grades or in attrition rate between the online and traditional students. However, there was a significant difference in the self-reported behavior types between the online and traditional students. The descriptive statistics illustrated differences between the online and traditional students in most of the demographics including gender, ethnicity, class level, marital status, number of children, employment status, and age. Less academic socialization appeared to be of very little concern to the online students. Scholars planning professional preparation courses in a distance modality may benefit from this research.