– What study program?
If you learn well from lectures, watch samples of each to see which ones you learn best from. The materials that are great for me might be terrible for you or might be awesome for you, depending on how similar our learning styles are. If you don't learn well from lectures but do learn well from reading, then find samples of the books from each and see which seem most like something you could learn well from (though in my maybe-biased opinion, Wiley has the most thorough books, and they're also cheap – I loved using Wiley!). Finding the review course that suits you best is important. That being said, Roger is a solid choice. I watched some of his sample videos to help understand a couple concepts that I struggled with from just reading Wiley and I enjoyed them. Had I been more of an auditory learner, or had I been willing to fork over the money for a full review course, I would have gotten Roger.
-How many hours of studying per section?
As you'd suspected, varies a lot per person. There used to be a standard recommendation floating around that I think was something like 70-100 hours for BEC, 100-120 for AUD, 120-150 for REG, and 150-200 for FAR, or something like that, but my hours were never anywhere close to that for each of the sections. Other people will tell you at least 150 for any section. This also depends at least in part on what materials you pick. I chose Wiley books and test bank, so my study consisted of reading the book and doing practice questions. This was a low-time method, compared to someone who watches lectures (which may be 30-40 hours easily for an exam, from what I've gathered), stopping to do questions after each lesson in the lectures, and then does review practice questions at the end. In the study period that I read the book (20 hours?) they've watched 40 hours of lectures and done 30-40 hours of homework questions, so they've got 70-80 hours in before they hit MCQ (multiple-choice question) review state, whereas I've got 20 hours in at that point, so our total study time is going to be a lot different! One thing that's important to all, though, is to consolidate your hours. If you study 5 hours a week for 10 weeks, that's going to be less effective than that same 50 hours in 2 weeks, since you'll forget a lot more over 10 weeks than over 2 weeks. So, aim for more hours per week and some breaks, instead of fewer hours per week and extended study periods. 3-4 months of studying for an exam is just too long to actually remember for the majority of people.
-How much time between exams?
Enough for you to be rejuvenated and avoid burnout, but not enough to waste your 18-month timer or to lose inertia. For me, I took a week's break between each exam, at least. My last 2 I took longer, cause there was “blackout month” coming and I was starting a new job, so I took a couple weeks off…and I did have 2 exams that were less than a week of break cause I was eager to get back to studying. However, I'm a big proponent of studying hard and then enjoying well-deserved breaks. Unless you have a specific life-event that requires a longer break, I would advise against a month's break between exams; however, a solid week at least I found was good for one's mental health.
If you meant how far apart to schedule exams: you'll see how long you need to study as you start, but I'd plan out my study time and see how long that led to. If you have a set of study material that has 40 hours of lectures for FAR, and you're taking FAR first, and you plan to study 100 hours total at 20 hours per week, then that's 5 weeks for FAR. Then if you plan to take a week's break, and then do AUD, and plan to study 80 hours for AUD at 20 hours per week, that's 4 weeks plus a week's break, so AUD 5 weeks after FAR. I'd probably pad the schedule with an extra week in case of unforeseen events or to allow for extra study, so make it 6 weeks later. Etc. etc. through the others.
-What order to take the exams?
Personal preference. Do you want to start with something easy as a confidence booster, or something hard to get the worst out of the way first? Only two that I think order really matters is to do FAR followed by AUD, because auditing is all about seeing if people did their financial reporting right, so it makes sense to review financial reporting before auditing, cause auditing is based on financial reporting. Also, I wouldn't suggest overlapping FAR or AUD with REG at all, since tax-accounting and financial-accounting are soooo different. So I guess my ideal order would be FAR, AUD, BEC, REG, or REG, BEC, FAR, AUD, so that if you have to do a re-take, you're not studying for REG then re-studying for FAR or AUD, since you've got BEC between then and can switch back to FAR or AUD after BEC. However, I did BEC, FAR, AUD, REG, and it worked for me, so it's not an exact science. 🙂 Right now, many people are trying to get BEC done before it has major changes with the coming exam changes; however, I can't remember which wave of changes BEC was in, and I think that the changes are over-hyped, so I wouldn't be too concerned over it…but it might be worth doing first if it hasn't been changed yet (its format will be changing and exam time lengthening, so presumably it will be a harder exam in the future).
-What is the estimated cost for each section?
Exam fees: https://www.boa.virginia.gov/cpaexam/ExamFees.shtml Not sure if in Virginia you have to pay the application fee one time or every time you apply for a new section of the exam. Generally people advise against applying for all 4 sections at once, since you'll only have a limited time after receiving your Notice to Schedule (NTS) to take the exams you've applied for – many states it's 6 months, not sure about VA. So if you apply for all 4, you have to take all 4 within that time, come hell or high water, or lose what you paid to apply. So, if you apply for 2 initially (let's say FAR and AUD), that'd be $120 application fee plus the fees for the two sections, each $193.45, so $506.90 total. Then when you apply for the next two – let's say REG and BEC – if the $120 is charged again, plus the fees for the two sections (those two are each $173.60), it'd be $467.20; if the $120 is just a one-time fee, then it'd just be $347.20. In KY, the $100 or so application fee was just one-time, and I think it was like a $10 processing fee for the re-application for the additional sections, or it might have not even had a fee; however, some states charge the full $100-ish fee for every time you apply for an additional section.
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