Last summer, in response to a request from the AICPA for schools to serve as "pretest sites" for the new CPA Exam, I volunteered Bryant as a site. Quite a bit of planning, emails, phone calls and paperwork
preceded the event, which was held on campus Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7 & 8, 2003 in classroom M35.
There were 3 3-hour sessions in each day, and students could only register to take those sections for which they had completed, with a grade of C or better, the relevant courses. Students signed a "confidentiality statement" not to disclose the contents of the pretest, and also to report the names of anyone who asks them for such information. The AICPA has had a problem with "no shows" at previous pretest events, and requires commitments of at least 50 individual test takers. In order to accomplish that, we extended invitations to candidates in some local firms and also at PC, URI, and Roger Williams College. We had
registrants from both URI and RW. Unfortunately, due to the snow on Friday, and the school's officially closing at noon, many candidates did not end up taking the pretest. The number of examinees on Friday in all 3 sessions was 37, and on Saturday was 35, for a total of 72, although several of those represent students taking more than one section. We would have been able to accommodate 150 individual exams.
Overall, I hope it proves beneficial to our students when they eventually sit for the CPA Exam. Many thanks to Professor Lynn Ruggieri, who helped with the planning and was the students' initial contact, Professor Marianne Bradford, who contacted local firms and the other colleges, and Professor Dennis Bline, who worked out several of the scheduling details and helped at the last minute when crucial files would not merge to generate the necessary student
documents. Also, Phil Lombardi worked with the AICPA staff to get the lab prepared and secured.
Dr. Kathleen Simons