[suzieemac]

Okay here it goes… I’m hoping someone will be able to give me a piece of mind because I have been dealing with NASBA since February trying to get a NTS and I am about to lose it. This is the story…

I received my Bachelors Degree in Arts Management in 2009 — its basically some Broadcasting, video editing, production and other not-for-profit business classes tied into regular business courses and arts electives. 132 credits

I received my MBA in 2011 – no concentration, just general business. 36 credits.

After all this, I decided the CPA was right for me. Since I had virtually no accounting credits, and my GMATs were about to expire, I really had no other choice but to get the Accounting Masters. Right now I have 12 accounting credits left before finishing the masters, but I have finished the four necessary classes to sit for the CPA exam under New York’s 120 SIT rule.

So today, I get the “OK to sit” e-mail from NASBA after months of transcript evaluation, my first school failing to send them half of my transcript, back and forth phone calls, e-mails, waiting, follow ups, more waiting, etc… So you could imagine how relieved I am to finally be able to sit for the exam. I re-read the e-mail and on the bottom it says:

“You will need to meet the following requirements before you can be licensed to practice as a CPA in New York:

1.) Lacks 12 semester hours to meet the accounting requirement.

2.) Lacks 15 semester hours to meet the business requirement.”

I know I need 12 hours in accounting but…

Doesn’t an MBA at least qualify to meet the business requirement?

How in the world could I be lacking 15 credits in business when I have a Masters in Business Administration and undergrad credits in numerous business courses as well?! I e-mailed them back asking them to clarify but its disheartening that I am working to pay for college, I’m on my second Master’s degree and they’re implying that a masters in business is not sufficient.

Please, someone tell me that this can’t be right.. =(

AUD - 8/12/16
REG - 10/7/16
BEC - 11/18/16
FAR - TBD

#300before30 - Pass the CPA exam before my 30th Birthday.

[Anonymous]

I'm not specifically familiar with NY's requirements, but did find this the other day researching them:
https://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/cpa/cpalic.htm#edu

It looks like under the 150 rule, you have to get 36 credits in non-accounting business courses. I'm guessing your Master's was 30 credits total, and of those maybe 6 were accounting, so that's probably 24 non-accounting business courses. So, you'd have needed 12 aside from the MBA based on my calculation, without seeing your transcripts. If you had 12 in your undergrad that weren't considered duplicated in your MBA, then you should have been good. Again, this is without seeing your transcripts, but that's my rough estimate. The duplication rules are hard to follow at times, though. Principles of Management that's in your undergrad as MGMT101 might be considered a duplicate with Management Theory that's in your Master's as MGMT601. 😐 However, it looks like completing a Master's in Accounting from an AACSB accredited program may fulfill your requirements without having to worry about the details, so if your Masters in Accounting program is AACSB accredited, then it could be that once NASBA gets the diploma for it, then all the other requirements will disappear.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not familiar with NY rules specifically, but I found that link a few days ago and thought it might help you.

[suzieemac]

Thank you for your reply. The link you posted makes me even more confident that I qualify, despite what their letter said.

NASBA did e-mail me back saying that more than likely I should be qualified. After thinking about this for a while, my assumption is that they only reviewed my undergrad business classes (approximately 21 credits are business related and do not include any in accounting) and did NOT look at my MBA. My MBA is 36 credits with 3 in accounting.

When I sent my transcripts when I first applied to sit, the school only sent the 2005-2007 portion of my transcript because they claimed “your transcripts are in two different computer systems”. So I had them re-send what I hoped was the rest of my undergrad transcript, as well as my graduate. My guess is that NASBA either did not consider the Grad transcript because I already qualified to sit, or just never received it. At this point I wouldn't be surprised at all if my school failed to send it to them.

If studying for the CPA wasn't bad enough, just the thought of having to take something like statistics again would give me severe nightmares 😛

AUD - 8/12/16
REG - 10/7/16
BEC - 11/18/16
FAR - TBD

#300before30 - Pass the CPA exam before my 30th Birthday.

[Author]

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