Matt is a weekly Club 75 Blogger as he documents his journey through the CPA Exam. He has been a member of Another71.com's Club 75 since April 2010.

All Exams Passed!

Holy cow, what a day! I will always remember where I was on Thursday, September 22nd at 7:30am. A day earlier I had found out that I had passed FAR and now I was just waiting for my REG score to be posted.

Knowing that the state of Nebraska posts the next day after scores are released, I knew that the morning would be the time the score would be posted.

At 7:30 I finally said, “OK, I’m going to check.” Heart pounding, cold sweats all over, I put in my ID and birthday and hit submit…..76 & credit was showing.

I had passed the final part of the exam, and I was now a CPA. I quickly got on the phone and called my fiancé, my parents and just about anybody who would listen to me. I was so excited. Most people are excited when they find out they passed, I was extra excited because of my situation.

I have what I feel is a very touching story in trying the pass the CPA exam. I started my journey July 27, 2007 when I took my first exam, and after 4 years 1 month and 26 days on September 22, 2011, my journey came to an end when I passed. I took the exam a total of 23 times (AUD 8 times, FAR 7 times, BEC 5 times, REG 3 times).

I had four exams expire (REG twice, FAR once, BEC once). I scored a 74 twice and both of these exams had I passed I would have been finished. Ultimately I ended up with all four of my passing scores in the 70’s.

Over my journey I tried countless different review courses from Becker, to Yaeger, to Wiley and finally Roger CPA Review. If I could own stock in review courses, I’d be millionaire. I spent countless holidays studying for exams, countless summers studying for exams, missed out on vacations, missed out on gatherings and just missed out on life.

I know I’m not going to get all that back, but my hard work paid off and now I’ve got the rest of my life to do it. If I had it to do all over again I would have started with Roger CPA Review from the start. Roger’s motivation, high energy, knowledge about the subjects, and his examples made studying actually fun and made me want to watch the lectures and learn the material.

Come on now, what review course do you know that actually has a pneumonic that talks about “Smoking Grass?” I felt his study plan fit me as a working individual who only had limited time to prepare for exams. I could get my studying done in 2-3 hours during the evenings and then had ample time to prepare on the weekends.

A few things I learned along my journey… Don’t ever give up. If you’re thinking you’re at your wits end and can’t go any further, think of me and my 23 times I took the exam. If I can pass the exam, anybody can pass the exam. It’s all about staying the course, staying confident and being able to control the highs and lows. You will have highs and lows throughout this and it's all how you control them.

Another thing would be change review materials if necessary. Sometimes review materials just run their course, you end up not getting anything out of the lectures, you’ve seen the same pneumonic devices, you’ve memorized the multiple choice questions and then you end up not getting as much out of studying for your exams.

A final point is after you’ve taken the exam, what’s done is done, you can’t spend your time worrying about it or trying to look up every question you can remember. You will drive yourself bonkers. Just realize that you need to move on and not think about it until you get your score back and then react accordingly.

Congratulations to everyone that passed during this testing period, and to those that are still studying out there please hang in there, work hard and you too will pass. Please let me know if I can ever do anything to help you. I will continue to stay on and blog here and there and would love to answer questions if people have them. Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you with answers and advice.

Take care,
Matt