Terry College of Business - Fall 2008 - (Page 25) individuals who benefit from the program is also important, as is a unique accounting curriculum knowledge, organization, and expression through its battery structure, and the innovative approach of professors like Linda Bamber and Dan Smith, who are of questions. Those who pass each section with a minimum revolutionizing the way accounting is taught. score of 75 percent earn the initials signifying their technical excelOne thing conspicuously absent from this equation is any semblance of strategy that lence like a badge of honor. It is the Certified Public Accountants teaches the CPA exam or emphasizes passing licensing examination, and its difficulty is so renowned that the longthe test. “We are proud of our CPA pass rates, but running joke among accountants is that CPA exam centers serve as instead of teaching to the end result, we see passing it as more of a by-product of a good their profession’s unofficial reunion place. program,” says Ben Ayers, director of the J.M. “I remember overhearing two people who had obviously seen Tull School of Accounting, who stresses that Terry doesn’t believe each other at the exam before. It was their twelfth and thirteenth in teaching to the exam, much less offering CPA exam review time there,” says Terry accounting professor Denny Beresford, courses within the curriculum. “The end result of completing our thinking back on his angst-ridden, two and a half days in the Santa program should be leaving here with a strong fundamental underMonica Civic Auditorium as one of 1,500 accounting graduates standing of accounting and tax rules in addition to long-term life taking the exam. “It made my heart drop, thinking that could wind skills of researching and learning. We have a very rigorous program up being me,” recalls the former two-term Financial Accounting that challenges students, and, as a result, helps our graduates get up Standards Board chairman and audit committee chairman of Fannie to speed quickly so they are ready to be successful.” Ayers’ personal CPA exam war story deals with pre-exam angst as Mae’s board of directors. Beresford passed on his first attempt, although he says there a new hire at KPMG’s Atlanta office. “It was my first day at work, were two sections “where it could have gone either way.” Yet even my cube mate had just failed all four parts of the exam and was by today’s standards — where calculators are permitted, the exam nervous to the hilt,” says Ayers. Although he passed on the first try, is computerized, and accounting grads have the option to schedule Ayers recalls balancing a new job by day and studying for the exam the exam’s four parts at their convenience — Beresford fared better at night as a “grueling experience.” Even for full-time students, it’s an ultra-demanding balancing act than most aspiring CPAs. Nationally, the highest initial pass rate for the CPA exam in the last 10 years was 20 percent (2003). Compared to devote prep time to the exam. It was 1975 when Terry professor to the bar exam’s national pass rate, which has consistently remained Linda Bamber stacked her fall course load so she could devote 40-50 for the past decade between 63-67 percent (1998-2008), accoun- hours per week to prepare for the CPA exam in her final semester at Wake Forest. “It never occurred to me that I would pass the entire tants envision lawyers exiting exam centers skipping and singing. Which is not to imply that first-time CPA exam pass rates exam the first time,” says Bamber. “All I wanted to do was get some are a grim statistic for graduates of Terry’s J.M. Tull School of parts completed, so next time I could take fewer parts.” Bamber couldn’t imagine feeling more out of her element when Accounting. Quite the opposite, in fact. According to the latest results published by the National Association of State Boards of she entered Winston-Salem’s convention center in her “lucky exam Accountancy, the first-time pass rate for Terry’s accounting gradu- clothes” and saw 500-600 others seated at row upon row of large ates in 2006 was an eye-popping 71.7 percent — fifth-best among wooden tables — and, even on test day, most were dressed for any school where first-time candidates without advanced degrees success. “I was wearing a pair of jeans, a funky-looking top, and took the examination (See chart on p. 27). In fact, since 1998, my hair was in pigtails with red ribbons,” Bamber recalls. “I show up looking like I’m in junior high, and there are all Terry’s first-time pass rate has been two and a half to of these people in suits . . . I was so intimidated, three times higher than the national average. thinking, What am I doing here?” What makes Terry accounting grads consisNervous because she finished the exam 45 tently among the top 10 in the country on the minutes early, Bamber was even more surprised CPA exam? The explanation begins with faculty later when she learned she had nailed all four who are the complete package of researcher parts of the exam, scoring in the top one and a and instructor. Support from organizations and Terry College oF t’s a 14-hour rite of passage split into four parts. It tests Business Fall 2008 • 25
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