CPA Examination Boot Camp FAQs for Masters of Accounting Students

CPA Examination Boot Camp FAQs
for
Masters of Accounting Students
Why should I do the Boot Camp?
The School of Accounting faculty has been honing the CPA Exam Boot Camp design
for the last twelve years. The faculty has now devised a system that creates great
leverage for success in your CPA Exam preparation. The classroom sessions teach
you how to take the exam and increase your skills and knowledge. But here’s the
special sauce. The sessions help you identify where you need to devote your time and
effort in preparing on your own. You can create great efficiency and powerful
effectiveness in you preparation through this insight.
The CPA/Excel materials will be your self-study portion of the Boot Camp. The
classroom sessions will use additional material developed by our JMU accounting
faculty. Your CPA/Excel self-study and the Boot Camp sessions will be congruent.
Together this combination produced the highest 2015 pass rates in the nation (95.2%)
for large graduate program exam candidates. The national average is around 20%.
When will the Boot Camp take place?
There will be an orientation session on Tuesday evening, May 3 rd. The Boot Camp
sessions will begin on Monday, May 9th and end on Wednesday, June 22nd. See the
Boot Camp Calendar below.
When can I get the CPA/Excel materials that accompany the Boot Camp?
You may order them anytime, but make sure you do so no later than Friday, April 22 nd.
You will need some of them for the orientation meeting on May 3 rd. Many of you
already have them. See Dr. Brad Roof in Showker, Room 523 to order the materials
(email: [email protected] call: 540-568-3087). DO NOT order them from the CPA/Excel
website. The cost for the CPA/Excel materials and the Boot Camp total $1,700 and are
payable only by check when you register with Dr. Roof.
When should I apply to take the CPA Exam in the state of my choice?
If you intend to apply to be a CPA in Virginia, register NOW! …. Many of you have
already done so. If you have not, do so immediately so you will be approved in time to
make your selections to take the auditing and BEC portions of the exam as planned in
the Boot Camp calendar. Although you have not graduated from the Masters program,
you will have your undergraduate BBA and Fall’15 Masters transcripts to support your
fulfillment of Virginia’s academic requirements.
After the state board completes your registration, you will then be able to register at the
Prometric test centers to take portions of the CPA exam. It is not uncommon for
registration to take four to six weeks. Register now. Here’s the Virginia state board of
accountancy website: http://www.boa.virginia.gov/
Not applying in Virginia, do this NOW! Every state has a website where you can obtain
information about applying. Go to your state board of accounting website and see their
candidate registration requirements.
Some states may have academic requirements which you may not fulfill until you
actually graduate with your masters degree in May. In such case you will not be able to
take parts of the CPA exam until at least July of this year. Go to your state’s board of
accounting website right away and get registered if you will qualify to start taking CPA
exam parts in this coming May.
What are the Audit and BEC “CPA Exam Days” in the Boot Camp calendar?
The first and second portions of the Boot Camp will address auditing and BEC. We
have scheduled them so that you can choose to take the CPA Exam for those two parts
closely following when each of those topics will be completed in the Boot Camp. So,
following each of those portions of the Boot Camp, you will have a day to take the test
and a “no class” day to “recuperate”.
The exam days for both auditing and BEC were chosen based on testing center
availability for those exam parts. See the calendar below for the dates. If through
preparation on your own you have already passed the BEC exam, you may wish to
schedule the audit CPA exam portion on May 21st as indicated in the calendar or even
take the auditing exam on May 24th or 25th.
Must I take the Auditing & BEC exams when shown on the Boot Camp Calendar?
No. Some firms are now requiring graduates to start working as early as the latter part
of July. We have incorporated these two test dates into the Boot Camp to enable
students with these early start dates to still pass all parts of the CPA exam prior to
starting full-time work.
If you will begin employment in September or October, you will have ample time to take
all four parts of the CPA exam after the Boot Camp and prior to joining your firm. In that
case, taking the auditing and BEC exams as scheduled in the Boot Camp calendar is
your “player’s choice”. However, the accounting faculty cannot encourage you enough
to make your personal goal to complete all parts of the CPA prior to beginning full-time
employment.
I have heard that the CPA Exam will be available in June. Is that correct?
Yes & No! ... The demand to take parts of the exam is apparently increasing due to the
change in exam format coming in April of 2017. People perceive that the new format
will be more challenging. Those managing the exam process have extended the “testing
window” into the first 10 days of June. So, yes, you can take parts of the exam through
June 10th, but no further into June. The Boot Camp has been designed to enable you to
take Auditing and BEC during the Boot Camp. Since FAR and REG are the most
challenging parts of the CPA exam, we recommend that you allow yourself plenty of
time to review for those two portions of the CPA exam.
Where do I take the CPA exams?
After your state board completes your registration, you will then be able to register at
the Prometric test centers to take portions of the CPA exam. The closest test centers to
Harrisonburg are all about two hours away: Falls Church, Richmond, Roanoke,
Lynchburg, Washington and Bethesda. Here’s the Prometric website,
https://www.prometric.com/en-us/Pages/home.aspx
Why aren’t there test dates scheduled for REG and FAR in the Boot Camp?
The CPA exam goes dark for the last month of every fiscal quarter …. March, June
September and December. During these times changes to the exam data base are
made by the AICPA with cooperation from Prometric.
I have some other questions. Who should I contact?
Dr. Brad Roof … Room 523, Showker Hall …. [email protected] …. 540-568-3087
(See the Boot Camp Calendar on the Following Page)
JMU School of Accounting
CPA Examination Boot Camp Calendar3
May 2016
Sunday
1
Monday
2
Tuesday
3
Boot Camp
Orientation
Wednesday
4
(8:00-9:00 p.m.,
Showker, G-6)
8
22
Grad. School
Commencement
(Evening)
Commencement
Commencement
14
10
11
12
13
Audit
Audit
Audit
Audit
(Dr. Roof)
(Dr. Roof)
(Dr. Roof)
(Dr. Roof)
(Dr. Roof)
1
Saturday
7
Audit
2
16
17
18
19
20
21
CPA Audit
Exam Day
CPA Audit
Exam Day
BEC
BEC
BEC
(Dr. Cereola)
(Dr. Cereola)
(Dr. Cereola)
(Optional Audit
CPA Exam Day)
(Your Choice)
(Your Choice)
23
24
25
26
27
28
BEC
CPA BEC
Exam Day
CPA BEC
Exam Day
Financial
Financial
(Dr. Briggs)
(Dr. Baril)
(Optional BEC
CPA Exam Day)
(Your choice)
(Your choice)
1
(Dr. Cereola)
29
Friday
6
9
1
15
Thursday
5
1
30
31
Financial
Financial
(Dr. Briggs)
(Dr. M.Riordan)
June 2016
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
1
No Class
5
12
19
Thursday
Friday
2
3
Financial
Financial
(Dr. M.Riordan)
(Dr. Baril)
6
7
8
9
10
Financial
Financial
No Class
Financial
Financial
(Dr. Copley)
(Dr. Briggs)
(Dr. Copley)
(Dr. Copley)
13
14
16
17
15
Regulation Regulation No Class
Regulation Regulation
(Dr. Nichols)
(Dr. Nichols)
(Dr. Nichols)
(Dr. Nichols)
20
21
23
24
22
Regulation Regulation Regulation
26
(Dr. Thomas)
(Dr. Thomas)
(Dr. Thomas)
27
28
29
30
Notes:
1
On one of these two days take the indicated portion of the CPA exam and have the other day as a “No Class” day.
2
Strongly recommended only for those who have already passed BEC.
3
All Boot Camp sessions will be held in Showker Hall, Room G-6
Saturday
4
11
18
25