Good news, y’all. Although the next CPA exam score release was supposed to be September 16 (that’s this Wednesday for those of you who have lost all sense of time these days), NASBA announced today that scores will be released tonight, September 14 at 9 p.m. Central.
#CPAExam candidates: The scores for the scheduled September 16 score release will be released TODAY at 9:00 p.m. Central. Yes, scores will be released early!
— NASBA (@NASBA) September 14, 2020
Woo! Just chugging along, eh?
Testing Window: July 1 – December 31, 2020
If you take your exam on/before: | Your target score release date is: |
July 23 | August 7 |
August 16 | August 25 |
September 8 | September 16 |
September 30 | October 9 |
October 23 | November 10 |
November 16 | November 24 |
December 8 | December 16 |
December 31 | January 12 |
Dates via AICPA
As you can see from the chart, that leaves just four score releases left in 2020. Given how this year has gone, let’s be optimistic yet skeptical about the rest of the year working out as planned, and then we can all pretend we’re surprised when aliens invade Prometric come November or whatever other calamity is waiting in the wings.
So that’s the good news. The bad news is that scores are coming early due to a planned system outage as per NASBA’s tweet earlier today.
There will be a system outage from September 15, 9:00 p.m. CDT to September 16, 2 a.m. CDT. Candidates WILL NOT have access to NASBA CPA Candidate accounts. If you are scheduled to take your #CPAExam during or around this time, print or upload your Notice to Schedule form now.
— NASBA (@NASBA) September 14, 2020
They didn’t elaborate on the details of the outage but my guess is some kind of serious maintenance on their end. This means the planned outage time is a best-case scenario if everything goes as planned; anyone who has done any amount of time in IT can tell you practical application is rarely if ever as smooth as the sandbox. In other words, print those NTSs even if you aren’t testing until later in the week just in case. You’ll be glad you did if there are any issues with this outage. I’m sure there’s some wise philosopher who said something about preparing for the worst I could quote here but you get it.
So good luck to everyone and here’s hoping candidates are aware that the system is going down Tuesday night; otherwise it’s going to be a loooooong night for the poor sap who runs NASBA’s Twitter account. Then again, isn’t it always.