Can I sit for the CPA?

College Majors Business Major
1

<p>Hello, I could really use some assistance in figuring out whether I can sit for the CPA after my undergrad (I would seriously love to avoid grad school just to get a CPA license). Anybody's thoughts are appreciated...</p>

<p>Here's the information that I, myself, can't decipher to figure if I will be eligible to sit for the CPA exam after my undergrad degree.</p>

<p>My state's education requirements to sit for the CPA exam are as follows:</p>

<p><a href="i">quote</a> a graduate
degree in
accounting;
(ii) a master of
business
administration degree which includes not
less than:
(A) 24 semester hours (36 quarter hours)
in upper division accounting courses
covering the subjects of financial
accounting, auditing, taxation, and
management accounting; or
(B) 15 semester hours (23 quarter hours)
graduate level accounting courses covering
the subjects of financial accounting,
auditing, taxation, and management
accounting; or
(C) an equivalent combination of
graduate and upper division accounting
courses covering the subjects of financial
accounting, auditing, taxation, and
management accounting with one hour of
graduate level course work being
equivalent to 1.6 hours of upper division
course work; or
(iii)a baccalaureate degree in business or
accounting and 30 semester hours (45
quarter hours) beyond the requirements for
a baccalaureate degree which includes not
less than:
(A) 16 semester hours (24 quarter hours)
in upper division accounting courses, which
when combined with the accounting
courses listed in Subsection (B) below, have
at least one course with a minimum of two
semester hours (three quarter hours) each
covering the subjects of financial accounting, auditing, taxation, and
management accounting;
(B) eight semester hours (12 quarter hours)
in graduate level accounting courses, which
when combined with the accounting courses
listed in Subsection (A) above, have at least
one course each covering the subjects of
financial accounting, auditing, taxation, and
management accounting;
(C) 12 semester hours (18 quarter hours) in
upper division non -accounting business
courses;
(D) 12 semester hours (18 quarter hours) in
graduate level business or accounting
courses; and
(E) 10 semester hours (15 quarter hours) of
either graduate or upper division accounting
or business courses.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Can anyone help me to figure out if I'm eligible to sit for the CPA exam upon graduating with an undergrad degree in accounting with >150 credit hours (due to my minor and some additional classes, I will graduate with 158 credit hours).</p>

<p>My upper division accounting/business curriculum is as follows (each course is worth 4 hours unless otherwise indicated):</p>

<p>FINC 307 Corporate Finance
MGMT 305 Principles of Management
MGMT 325 Business and Employment Law
MGMT 485 Strategic Management
MKTG 300 Principles of Marketing
ACCT 313 Managerial Accounting
ACCT 350 Intermediate Accounting I
ACCT 360 Intermediate Accounting II
ACCT 454 Auditing
ACCT 467 Accounting Information Systems
ACCT 474 Individual Income Taxation (4)
ACCT Elective: One additional upper division elective course (I took 2 hours of ACCT 412 International Accounting)
ACCT 440 Internship</p>

2

<p>It would help quite a bit if you specified what state you were looking to apply to. Going on the information provided...</p>

<p>From what I'm reading, your state doesn't require a master's degree; however, according to sections (iii)B and (iii)D, you do have to take graduate courses.</p>

<p>Where did you copy this information from? Is there a fourth option? Most states seem to have four options: one for a MAcc, one for non-accounting master's degrees, one for business/accounting undergrad degrees and one for all other bachelor's. This list seems to be lacking that fourth option.</p>

<p>Your accounting department's head or advisor should be able to go over all of this with you. You may need to get clarification about what is considered a "graduate" course for this purpose; however, based on the fact that they distinguish between upper level and graduate courses, it would seem that none of your courses qualify as graduate.</p>

<p>You may want to see if your school offers any 500+ level courses.</p>

<p>I would also make sure that the information you have is complete--most states have some minimum requirements for the specific business courses you take--for instance, Massachusetts requires a Qunaitative Methods in Business class, which I don't see listed in your courses. Make sure that your state doesn't have such a requirement.</p>

<p>If all else fails, you can try calling your state board of accountancy or NASBA; however, I'll warn you that they are generally not helpful at all. I had a terrible time getting my application approved (in fact, the rejected it at first, despite the fact that I was qualified).</p>

3

<p>Yeah, the state is Utah... and their accounting board is highly unhelpful... it's like they just want you to send in your information and see what happens. I wish I could know ahead of time so I know whether I need to do some graduate work or move to a different state. BTW, I do have quantitative coursework in statistics and quantitative analysis, but neither is a business course.</p>

<p>That information is directly off the professional licensing division of the utah government website. It's so legal in nature that I can't really tell what they're saying.... because if you have to have 30 additional hours that include 16 here, 8 there, 12 here, 12 there, and 10 more... then that's well above 30 hours... so I can't tell if the requirement includes an "or" clause that just wasn't written. (i.e. (A) and/or, (B), and/or (c), and/or (d), and/or (e). It certainly would make more sense this way.</p>

4

<p>"BTW, I do have quantitative coursework in statistics and quantitative analysis, but neither is a business course."</p>

<p>That was a problem I ran into--in Massachusetts, the quantitative methods course needs to be specifically business related. Between AP credits and classed I had taken for my second degree, I had 2 semesters of Calc and 2 semsters of Stats, so my business school waived the requirement for their business stats course. When NASBA looked over my transcripts, they saw "CAS MA 116 Statistics" and automatically said that I didn't qualify because it was a liberal arts course and not a business course. They didn't both to see what I had taken a Business Modeling course the next semester, which did qualify. It took two weeks of calling every day to get them to look at my application again, despite the fact that I included a syllabus for this course with everything.</p>

<p>Anyway, back to your situation...</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nasba.org/NASBAfiles.nsf/Lookup/UTEducationChecklist/$file/UTEducationChecklist.pdf"&gt;http://www.nasba.org/NASBAfiles.nsf/Lookup/UTEducationChecklist/$file/UTEducationChecklist.pdf&lt;/a> is a bit easier to read--it's from NASBA's website. It seems to indicate that you specifically need graduate level courses. I would talk to your school about fulfilling that requirement. You should also look into the reciprocity agreements your state has with others--you may be able to qualify under another state, take the exam and then apply to transfer your license. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. They may still require you to fulfill the education requirements. Note that you don't have to move to accomplish this--most states don't have a residency requirement and you can physically take the exam anywhere (I've been taking it in New Jersey, but I am applying to Massachusetts).</p>

<p>"because if you have to have 30 additional hours that include 16 here, 8 there, 12 here, 12 there, and 10 more... then that's well above 30 hours... so I can't tell if the requirement includes an "or" clause that just wasn't written. (i.e. (A) and/or, (B), and/or (c), and/or (d), and/or (e). It certainly would make more sense this way."</p>

<p>There are four paths in your state--(i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) are each a path. The subsections (a), (b) and so on are additional requirements. I think that you're reading it incorrectly--it's not saying that you have to have 30 extra credits, made up of the requirements listed in (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e)--it's saying that your 150 credits need to include courses from each of those areas.</p>

<p>So, of your 150, 16 have to cover financial accounting, auditing, tax and managerial. 8 of those 16 need to be graduate level courses.</p>

<p>You also need 12 hours of upper level business courses.</p>

<p>You also need 12 hours of graduate level business and accounting courses (some courses in this requirement overlap with the first two requirements). You also need 10 hours of upper level or graduate business/accounting courses.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the sheet ryanbis, that makes it much more clear... Utah must have next to the toughest requirements for CPA certification... damn!</p>