Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Here’s Your Open Thread for the Third CPA Exam Score Release of Q1

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

For you lunatics who thought taking a section of the CPA exam during busy season was a good idea, you will soon know if it was.

If you can spare the time (and your office allows it), crack open an Audit Ale and express your joy or sorrow below.

Related Posts

Here’s Your Open Thread For the Second CPA Exam Score Release of Q4 2019

Another day, another CPA exam score release that has arrived exactly when NASBA promised it […]

Is Pulling a No-Show a Good Move If You’re Completely Unprepared for the CPA Exam?

Do you guys ever read Yahoo! Answers? It’s awesome. Especially the posts that revolve around asking the Internet at large if the asker could be pregnant based on some risky behavior like, say, hanging out topless in a hot tub with a guy with a boner.

But useless drivel aside, sometimes good questions are asked. Given that it’s CPA exam score time once again and some of you who got bad news might not feel like talking about scores, I wanted to share this with you all and see what you think instead of discussing that.


Way back in my CPA review days, when asked this question by our students, I’d almost always tell them to go anyway. Even if you aren’t prepared, you’ve already spent the money on your exam and aren’t getting it back so why not go so you can at least get familiar with the questions?

Here’s the question:

I am scheduled to take the auditing section of the CPA exam tomorrow morning. Problem is, I haven’t studied at all. I also am now in private accounting, but still would like the certification. I have passed one already. I can’t reschedule the test because my Notice to Schedule expires next week.

So I was curious… the money I spent (about $200) is non-refundable- fine. It’s my fault for not studying. But canceling it altogether is $35. My question is, why would I cancel? Can I just not go? I realize going and failing would go on the record, but at least I could see how it is. So I have three options.

First of all, to what “record” is this person referring? I know some of you who have tried and failed over EIGHTEEN times. After the 7th or 8th time, most people learn to keep their mouth shut at work when they are headed to Prometric once again (though all those “personal days” can get a bit suspect), and by the 17th or 18th they have gotten so good at the action of sitting for the exam they actually pass. Your firm doesn’t keep a permanent file with your numerous exam failures in it, though your cattier colleagues might keep a mental one so they have some bullshit to hold over you next time they’re trying to outshine you in front of the partner. Big deal.

Anyway – what’s the benefit of paying more for a no-show over just not going? Assuming you’ve got some time left on your NTS, you will not have to reapply for a new one to take that section. We think. Check out this thread on the Another71 forums for more info on that option, plus yet more commentary on the confusing labyrinth that is dealing with the CPA exam authorities.

Apparently, if you no show, NASBA will allow you to re-apply for a new NTS within 48 hours of your no show exam (see this thread, also from Another71), which could work in your favor if your NTS is going to expire at the beginning of the window but your first passing exam expires at the end and you need the extra time to study.

Your best bet in this situation is to cram in a few days of as much studying as you can and just go. Granted, cramming is pretty useless when it comes to the CPA exam but you never know.

Anyone taken either of these paths? Better yet, has anyone shown up for the exam completely unprepared and actually passed?

Desperately Seeking a CPA Exam Study Buddy?

Contributor note: with busy season winding down and such awful CPA exam performance the first quarter of this year, we suspect many of you are thrilled to cuddle up with Peter Olinto and dust the cobwebs off your CPA review books. That being the case, though you might still be mad at us from last quarter, we invite you to send in your CPA exam questions so we can do our best to answer in a way that offends the fewest candidates possible.

Being an accountant already isolates you from a large number of non-accountant people, most of whom automatically assume you do taxes for a living and will never understand why it’s funny to claim Ex-lax as “moving expenses.” Taking on the CPA exam naturally isolates you further; from your significant other, who doesn’t get why you never seem to have time for them anymore, from your friends who are still trying to get you to do their taxes and from your higher-ups who seem determined to tell you for the 40th time how much harder the CPA exam was back in their day.


Seeking a CPA exam study buddy doesn’t need to feel like having to find a partner in middle school gym class and it doesn’t matter where you are, you can find one. Here are a few tips:

• Try CPAnet – You can find an entire section of the forum dedicated to study groups, ranging from Phoenix to Seattle to Dubai. Don’t see your city listed? Register for the forum and post your own.

• Get on Twitter – Try the #twudygroup hashtag on Twitter to chat with other CPA exam candidates, bitch about how your review courses have let you down and talk about how messed up it is when asshole bloggers call you out on their websites. Speaking of, we’d like to send a very personal congratulations to former #twudygroup member @CStrunk for passing the CPA exam, proof that alcohol and computer cleaning in lieu of studying can help, if you’re willing to put in the work when you’re sober. Congratulations, Chris, we knew you had it in you otherwise we’d have never called you out in the first place.

• Ask around your office – Unless you are in a two-man office in which one of you is the accountant and the other one the boss, someone in your office is also studying for the CPA exam. You can do a quick cube check to determine who might be studying but if you’re too shy to ask, just look for the sleep-deprived look in their eye, MCQ on their computer screen during lunch or the “kill me now” sign taped on their wall the day scores come out. Just make sure to pick someone you actually like, sharing the next year and a half with someone you can’t stand can only lead to conflict and/or increased diversity training later down the road.