Bachelor of Science in Accountancy Synthesis

INTRODUCTION

        One would ordinarily take Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (BSAc) as his/her course to pass the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Licensure Examination and gain the distinct CPA designation. Most of the BSAc graduates are able to pass the CPA board exam immediately after they graduated, while the others take some years before passing the exam. But sometimes not all of the BSAc graduates are able to gain a CPA designation.

        As trade in businesses are becoming more global the Accountancy profession is gaining more popularity. Recent studies show that the number of students enrolling and taking accounting is significantly increasing. But due to the difficulty of the course, many students are shifting to other courses. The course demands ardous tasks that test the students' character including rigid training, and, at the end, a difficult board exam.

        Most of the students who enter the College of  Business Administration and Accountancy of Central Luzon State University want to take Accountancy as their major. The policy of the college that no student with a grade of lower than 2.50 in Accounting 100 and 105 and no grade of 5.0 in other subjects must be allowed to take the qualifying exam significantly reduce the number of students qualified to take the exam. Out of a number of students who will take the qualifying exam, only 90 students are actually accomodated each year to take the course of Bachelor of Science in Accounting Technology (BSAT). Out of the 90 BSAT students, only a handful are actually able to continue as Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (BSAc) students because of the no grade of 5.0 policy of the college.

        Certainly, the Bachelor of Science in Accountancy is quite a demanding course causing other students to shift to other courses, but the true test of character comes at the end of the line, when the students are up to take the CPA Licensure Examination. After gaining the necessary knowledge and skills from the institution, BSAc graduates must take the CPA Licensure Exam to gain the CPA designation.

        Usually, people are only interested with the current results of the CPA board exam without giving much attention that the passing rates released by the Professional Regulations Commission are representative of the first-time takers including fresh graduates and those who take the exam years after they graduated, and those who take the exam twice or more. The purpose of this study is to determine whether all the BSAc graduates of batches March 2008, October 2008, and batch 2014 are all Certified Public Accountants as of the date of this study noting the time of passing the exam.

        To obtain the data neeeded, the names of the BSAc graduates of the respective batches were gathered to verify in the list of the passers of the CPA licensure exam whether each of them had already passed the CPA board exam.

Objectives of the Study

        The objectives of this synthesis are:

1. To ascertain, as of the date of this synthesis, what percentage of the BS Accountancy graduates of batches March 2008, October 2008, and 2014 of Central Luzon State University have already passed the CPA Licensure Examination, thus gaining a CPA designation.
2. To determine the time frame each graduate of the three batches of BS Accountancy graduates passed the CPA Board Examination.

Statement of the Problem

        This synthesis aims to give light to the following questions:

1. What percentage of BSAc graduates batches March 2008, October 2008, and 2014 have already passed the CPA licensure examination?
2. In what particular dates did the examinees pass the board exam?

        Limitation of the Study

        This study covers only three batches of BS Accountancy graduates of Central Luzon State University, batch March 2008, batch October 2008, and batch 2014. Its objective is to determine only the percentage of BSAc graduates of the respective batches that already have a CPA designation. This is to determine whether all the graduates of the aforementioned batches are all CPAs as of the date of this study. This study does not consider the reasons why some of the graduates do not have a CPA designation as of the date of this study. Likewise, the reason why some of the BSAc graduates passed the CPA board exam years after they graduated is not considered.The time frames covered in this study are 8 years for those BSAc graduates who graduated in the year 2008 and 2 years for those who graduated in the year 2014.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

“The Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation has been the hallmark of the accounting profession and thus it is important to the accounting profession that recent graduates pursue the CPA designation.”

        The CPA Board Examination is the final test in becoming a full-pledged accounting professional. It is very important for graduates of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy to take the licensure exam as early as possible to gain the distinct three letters designation added to their names because it may be a ticket to bigger opportunities ahead of them.  Moreover, employer preferred a CPA board passer. Most of the graduates, if not all, of BS Accountancy realized these importance in their career whenever they are applying for an accounting related position in any of the fields of Accountancy.

        To become a full member of the Accountancy profession, a graduate of BS Accountancy must pass the CPA board examination. The purpose of the exam is, as stated by Boone et al., (2004); Johnson (2003):

“The purpose of the CPA exam is to certify that CPAs have the requisite knowledge and skills necessary to protect the public interest.”

        Since the information presented by an accountant is used in decision making, the protection of the public interest is the bottomline of conducting a licensure exam to test the knowledge and skills, and experience acquired by the graduates from the institutions they came from. As a minimum requirement to pass the board exam, a candidate must have knowledge in simple arithmetic and comprehensive analytical and logical thinking skills.

        Although the CPA board exam serves as a hurdle, taking the exam is not a requirement in entering the field of Accountancy, thus some of the graduates delay the taking or even decide not to take the examination.

        According to Buchanan et al., 2004:

“Even graduates with good intentions to take the exam are apt to delay taking the exam without having explicit deadlines.”

        Perhaps the most common reason why students delay the taking of the board exam is because of financial constraints. Reviewing for the board exam demands a good amount of money. For the students to pay for the review, they usually delay the exam for a year or more and work first to finance their review for the board exam in the future.