Even if you can’t read them while tooling down the expressway, chances are you’ve seen the billboards around metro Detroit touting the passage rate of Detroit Mercy Accounting grads on the Certified Public Accounting exam.
The billboards read “Our Accounting grads beat Harvard on the CPA exam!” Other billboards list additional nationally ranked schools we beat on the CPA exam. Here’s the story behind them.
The licensing exam to become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is exceptionally rigorous. The test is composed of four sections: the business environment and concepts, financial accounting and reporting, auditing and regulation. Among all test-takers on all four sections, the overall pass rate last year was just 48.3%. First-time test-takers passed an average of 52.9% of sections, while candidates re-taking the test passed only 41.7% of the sections. Of course, not all accounting graduates choose to become CPAs, so not all of them take the CPA exam.
After the close of each year, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy publishes the CPA test results, and ranks the country’s best colleges and universities, based on the pass rates of their first-time candidates. Institutions are listed by size as either very small (5 to 9 candidates), small (10 to 20 candidates), medium (21 to 60 candidates), or large (more than 60 candidates).
In each of the past two years, Detroit Mercy ranked among the 40 best small programs in the nation, outperforming two Ivy League universities that are also in the small program category. For 2016, our pass rate of 68% exceeded Harvard University’s (63%), and in the most recently-reported results, our 63% pass rate in 2017 exceeded that of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (61.1%).
Among those taking the 2017 exam was Holly Hedemark, ’17, ’18, an Accounting major from our 5-year BS/MBA program. As a student, Hedemark served as a communications assistant for the Titans, conducting interviews of players during halftime events. She also served on the College of Business Administration’s Centennial Committee, helping to arrange the 100th anniversary celebrations in 2016-17. She completed internships with both Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Donnelly Penman & Partners. And she was one of four Detroit Mercy business students to place among the top 25 performers in the world during the 2017 ETF Global Portfolio Challenge.
“Thanks to the small class sizes and incredible professors at Detroit Mercy, I was able to complete all four sections of the CPA exam in just ten months,” Hedemark, now a financial advisor with Plante Moran, said. “Completing the exam and obtaining the 150 credit-hour education requirement before beginning my career with Plante Moran was a great feeling. I highly recommend the 5-Year MBA program at Detroit Mercy for all students interested in obtaining their CPA license.”
