Getting licensed: it's not that hard once you start

I’ve blogged before about how getting licensed is important for your professional as well as financial future.  You might expect me to encourage you not to procrastinate on submitting your record to NCARB or the architectural registration board of your state of residence, and you’d be right.  My tips for success on the ARE:

o        Don’t procrastinate.  Putting off filing your credits and paperwork are worse than actually taking the test, according to my own experience and that of newly-licensed architects. 

o        Once you start taking tests, don’t stop.  That five-year mark will creep up on you before you know it.  A good way to prevent this is to book your next exam in the Prometric testing place as soon as you finish a test section.  They’re generally quite happy to do it, and once you’ve paid for it and written it (right then) in your planner or on your calendar or on the back of a fast-food napkin (whatever system works for you), it’s pretty real.  Real enough to make you take a couple days off and then start studying again.

o        Study for the exams the way you studied in college.  I used to pass my midterms and finals by reading everything a couple of times over the course of the semester and occasionally discuss some of the material with others.  My husband was a crammer—he’d read and study like mad for a couple of weeks before each test.  Each of our methods worked for each of us when applied to the ARE.  If you got through college without ever cracking a book, you better make like Kool & The Gang and get down on it.  While the AIA provides some fairly affordable and generally good-quality classes on the ARE sections, you will NOT be able to take a class and then roll up in the Prometric office and bang these tests out.  Some of the test questions, I guarantee you, will be about things you’ve never done or seen in your life, and the study materials really help.

o        You do not necessarily need brand new study materials for the brand new ARE.  If you’re about to take ARE 4.0 and someone has study materials for ARE 3.1, you can use them.  The subject matter on the tests is the same; they were just rearranged and condensed.

The most important point I’d like to leave you with is this: Failing a test does not make you stupid, and passing a test does not make you smart.  The truth is that the ARE exams are to test candidates for minimal competence, and some of that competence unintentionally is regarding how well you take tests.  I am very good at tests, but I know perfectly competent architectural interns who just cannot pass some sections of the ARE due to test anxiety.  I knew a fellow who was an intern for almost 20 years and took each of the Structures sections at least four times each; as I understand it, he had a combination of math anxiety and test anxiety.  One of the partners at the firm at which I work passed every section of the ARE except Structures, which he had a hard time studying and learning because of his own personal objections.  He reasoned that since architects aren’t allowed to design structure, we really shouldn’t be tested on it.  He let his personal objections to being tested on particular material get in the way of simply studying and passing the test.

A pitfall that particularly affects interns with good design skills is that of trying to make designs in the graphics sections pretty.  The ARE is not testing your aesthetic sensibilities, just your minimal competence.  The buildings, ceilings, structural frames, etc. simply need to work, not be camera-ready.  If you find that you have any test anxieties or used to do poorly on things like the ACT, SAT, or GRE, take a class, get some therapy, do whatever you need to do: just fix it and pass the tests.  The fellow who failed each of the Structures sections four times had twice as much experience as an architect than I have, and I would trust him to work on my projects before some licensed architects.  Even schmucks pass the ARE; it’s only testing for minimal professional competence.  And if a schmuck can pass the ARE, so can you.

Getting licensed: the basics of the ARE

Regardless of how you gain your hours and experience as an intern (through IDP or through whatever process your state allows), at some point you’ll be ready to take the ARE.  When you have all your hours ready, you’ll submit your record to NCARB or the architectural registration board of your state of residence.  If you go through NCARB, they’ll submit your record to your state of residence, and then you’ll be sent a testing number that allows you to schedule exams.  In the U.S., the ARE is administered at Thomson Prometric learning centers, where tests can be scheduled during business hours and even on Saturdays (call and check on this kind of availability). 

With the advent of ARE 4.0, which I’m about 99.999% certain you’ll be taking if you’re reading this, there are seven sections to the ARE, compared to the nine that have comprised the ARE for the past umpteen years (and which I took not that long ago—yes, I know, I’ll tell you all about it sometime while leaning on my walker and drinking an Ensure).  The previous ARE format split up the multiple-choice tests and the graphic tests, but now each of the seven tests has a multiple-choice (or as I call it, multiple guess) section and a graphics section.  The sections are:

o        Building Design & Construction Systems

o        Construction Documents & Services

o        Structural Systems (used to be two separate tests under ARE 3.1 and previous AREs)

o        Building Systems (involves mechanical, electrical, and plumbing)

o        Programming, Planning, & Practice

o        Schematic Design

o        Site Planning & Design

The old ARE also had Building Technology as a graphics section; its subject material has been absorbed into four of the new tests.

You can schedule the tests in any order and at any time, but if you fail a section, you cannot take it again for six months.  When you take the ARE, you also have to agree not to tell others what exact questions were on the tests.  You can describe general topics, as I recall, but you can’t say, “There’s this one question where you have X joists and Y floor and the contractor says Z….”  Also, remember that once you pass your first test, you have five years to complete them all before the first ones you passed are voided and have to be taken again.  Five years sounds like a long time, but I know of people who have taken that long to do it.  To be fair, it also allows for a couple of dramatic things to happen to you, like having a baby, surviving a terrible illness, enduring a military deployment, or losing a close family member.  For some of these instances, I believe you can get a forbearance of your five-year clock—check NCARB’s website to be sure.

Once you pass all the tests, you may still have to take additional tests depending on your state of initial licensure.  Colorado used to require an open-book ethics test, but it was recently discontinued.  I had to take it in the summer of 2006, but a colleague did not have to do so in early 2007—when my colleague told me about this, I nearly spit out my Ensure.  When you have passed all the required tests and possibly paid some additional fee to your state licensing board, they’ll send you your official architect’s license.  Congratulations—you’ve made it.

But back to the mechanics of the ARE: it’s expensive, and chances are you’ll have to miss some work to take at least some of if not all the tests.  Ask your employer if they provide any financial assistance with taking the exam.  Examples of financial help would be interest-free loans to pay for the tests, copies of study materials that you can borrow, or even paid time off to take it.  Some firms will flat out pay for you to take the ARE—yes, they exist.  For most firms (or in my opinion any firm who has their priorities in order), having licensed architects in the firm is valuable, so it behooves them to help you get licensed.

Procrastination is your enemy

I heard an intern in my office complaining about the ARE 4.0 last week.  She's been taking her tests for three or four years now, and she was complaining to a younger intern about how she had to find a testing facility in our state to take the old ARE Building Technology test before July 1st before the old version goes defunct, otherwise she's going to have to take five sections of ARE 4.0 in order to make up that one test.  The younger intern bemoaned this fact and commented that there ought to be some kind of exception for her.  The fact is that NCARB started warning us about ARE 4.0 in the fall of 2006 (my husband recalls hearing about it when he started at a new firm then).  Testing facilities have been offering both versions of the test for well over a year now.  Interns in the process of taking the old ARE have had plenty of warning and exceptions.  If you procrastinate and/or let your job get in the way of your career, you only have yourself to blame.

Allow me to explain.  After observing younger interns as well as my still-unlicensed contemporaries with regards to this issue, the primary reason for putting off completing the ARE is the time + energy factor.  Everyone has a cover version of the same song; work gets busy and has crazy deadline after crazy deadline, or something major happened in their personal life, and the intern cannot find the time or the energy to study for and take tests for some amount of time.  Fair enough--life gets busy and work can get tough.  But consider this: there will always be something in your way.  Work will get hectic, you or your partner will be expecting a child, a parent will get sick, you will get sick, you will get married, you will get divorced, life will be hard.  Yes, sometimes you have to take a break, but at some point, you will decide--you must decide--that you are going to take and finish the ARE.  

If work is a constant onslaught of deadlines, it is up to you to take your boss(es) aside and explain that you need some time to finish the ARE and that your passing the tests will benefit everyone.  Most managers can respect this and will work with you to get you the space and time you need.  If you have managers that cannot respect this, then you need to change managers or jobs.  If you cannot change managers or jobs, ask yourself if that's really true.  If it's really true, then you have to figure something out.  This same advice goes for personal issues.  If you have a new baby or child, work out some arrangements to get help with child care so that you have the time to a) rest and b) study and take the tests.  If you or a loved one is having health issues, talk with their/your healthcare providers to assess what's realistic and to find support systems that can help you meet your goals.  If it seems impossible, look at it again.  If it's still impossible, you can get a forebearance on your five-year rule, depending on the reason.  If your reason for putting off the ARE isn't covered by NCARB's allowable forebearance reasons, then figure something out.

Full disclosure: my husband, also an architect, and I started taking the ARE at the same time, just as I started a big project.  Our plan was to take two every two months; this worked out to one test a month, but if we did two every two months, we could better share our one copy of all the study materials.  We took two of the tests, and my project busted wide open with no one to help me on a regular basis.  I considered postponing the tests, but I also knew that if I stopped, it might be hard to start again.  Hence, I worked sixty-hour weeks while taking the ARE.  I worked no less than seven eight-hour days a week for eight months straight while taking and passing one ARE section test per month.  While this was insane and took three months for me to recover, I got it done.  

Another colleague of mine had just started taking the ARE when his wife informed him that she was expecting a baby.  He knew that having a new little one in the house was going to be exhausting and that his wife would need his support, especially in the first months afterwards.  He accelerated his schedule of test taking and managed to have taken all of them by a few weeks before the baby arrived.  He managed to fail the last test, but he wasn't worried about it; since he couldn't take the failed test for another six months, he might as well enjoy his new daughter now and take the test again later.  Eight months after he took the failed test, he took it again and passed.

If you want it bad enough, you will take and finish the ARE.

Next post: what's up with the ARE, anyway?

Saving us from ourselves: a clarification, an explanation, and an observation

I got another email from an NCARB representative this week that shed some light on IDP, NCARB, and the infernal late application fee:

For further clarification, you can only pursue an NCARB certificate after you have received your initial license and if you meet the requirements of certification; http://www.ncarb.org/certification/uscertification.html.  If you keep your record active between IDP/ARE and initial licensure and then pursue NCARB certification, the application fee is waived ($675) and you’ll receive ½ price renewals for the first three years (the current annual renewal for certification is $190).

 

The “late application” fee is actually intended to reduce retroactive reporting for the IDP and to encourage timely reporting of experience.  This fee is being eliminated on July 1^st of this year as the new six month rule will require regular reporting.  Thanks!

This explanation for the late application fee makes sense to me only if interns actually check the schedule of fees on NCARB's website.  Many of them probably don't, and they pay for it.  So what's the problem with retroactively reporting a few years' worth of hours?  The NCARB rep explains:

Once the six month rule is in place, no retroactive reporting beyond the 6 month rule windows will be allowed.  We have done our best to broadcast these changes over the past 15 months.  We fully believe that timely report will benefit the intern, the supervisor, and will ensure that NCARB Records runs smoothly.  A common complaint that we receive involves frustrated interns that cannot get past employers to verify their work because the supervisors simply don’t remember what work was accomplished and hesitate to provide a blanket sign-off.  The timely reporting should enhance the experience and actually reduce issues and delays associated with the process… but interns will be responsible to get these reports in within the appropriate reporting windows (within two months of the end date of the reporting period).

Ah, that's why.  It's partially a problem of NCARB being able to get an intern's record complied and approved in a timely manner once they receive a huge pile of an intern's hours, and it's also that they're having to save interns from themselves.  I have also seen interns scrambling time and again to get former employers to approve hours and sign off on their records when the intern finally opens their NCARB record after working for four years and being gone from that employer for three of them.  NCARB's Six Month rule, which requires that an intern report their hours of experience every six months through the online recordkeeping system (e-EVR), will prevent these sorts of delays.

What's notable here is that NCARB's three most recent changes are designed ultimately to stop interns from procrastinating.  The Five-Year rule, instituted in the last couple of years, mandates that from the date of an intern's first test, s/he only has five years to finish passing the tests.  When the Five-Year rule was passed, there were nine tests in the ARE.  Starting in 2007 (I think, but maybe it was early 2008), there are only seven tests in the latest version of the ARE, known as ARE 4.0.  This means that now you have five years to pass seven tests, not nine.  Added to all this is the Six-Month rule, which kicks in for all interns not yet taking the ARE as of July 1 of this year.  All these changes require that an intern open their record with NCARB in a timely fashion (if they do indeed plan to go through NCARB and IDP), report their hours on a regular basis, and then finish taking their tests in an expedient manner once they've started.

Some clarification and a thank you

I recently received an unprompted email from someone who works at NCARB, who had the following clarification:

Only the individual states (member boards) are members of NCARB (The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards); other individuals are record holders or is some cases certificate holders.

So what this means is that when you see NCARB after an architect's name, that means that they have a record with NCARB, which means that if a client does work in more than one state or in a state different from the one in which the architect lives, it won't be that hard for the architect to be or get licensed in the client's state.

I also would like to say thank you to the NCARB person for emailing me.  I want to emphasize to my readers that I intend to provide my observations as I see fit on this blog, but I hope that I can do so without bashing people or institutions.  Likewise, I appreciate comments and emails from readers that are clear but civil.

IDP, NCARB, and (mostly) necessary evils, Part 2 of 2

To recap, IDP was created by NCARB to give folks a uniform standard for acquiring and recording/accounting for architectural training experience, which once complete qualifies you to take the Architectural Registration Exams (ARE).  Many states require participating in IDP to get licensed, though not all do.  Joining IDP and NCARB makes it easier to transfer your internship record and/or your license from one state to the next.  As you might expect, joining NCARB costs money, $285 to be exact.  Yes, that's a lot of cash, but if it's any consolation, it hasn't gone up since I got out of graduate school in 2000.

The initial $285 opens your IDP/NCARB record and pays for them to maintain your record for three years.  After that, it costs $60 a year to keep the record open and maintained.  (That has gone up; it was $50 a year when I graduated in 2000.)  Technically, it takes three years of full-time work to gain all the hours prescribed in IDP, but the reality is that it usually takes four or five years for many interns.  Some firms won't properly mentor their interns for whatever reason.  Sometimes an office designs a lot of projects but none of them get built, thereby inadvertently denying the interns on those projects the chance to gain their construction administration hours.  The current economic climate means that a lot of interns are out of work, so gaining any hours towards their IDP is impossible for a while.  I needed a shade over four years to get my hours and probably another nine months to procrastinate submitting my final record to NCARB to start taking the exam, so I paid an extra $120.  However, NCARB allows you to open your record with them for only $100 if you're in school up until about six or so months after graduating.  They're going to ask for the final $185 when you submit your record for the ARE, so have it ready.  After you pass the ARE, you can still pay NCARB a certain amount each year to keep your record active so you can have them transfer it as required for reciprocity purposes.

I have spoken with many architects and interns over the past few years regarding NCARB, and it appears that a lot of people have had less-than-delightful experiences with them.  In NCARB's most recent issue of their publication Direct Connection (2009 Vol 12 Issue 1), they have a four-page article about how they are making improvements to their customer service.  They write: "In 2008, backlogs and response times became a major priority.  While we are not yet where we plan to be, significant improvements have been realized by reorganizing the Records directorate.  Several new staff members were added, and all Records staff were cross-trained to consolidate functions, which eliminated the need for handoffs and rework."

I wonder if the article was published in response to some recent hiccups in customer service and record processing.  In late 2008 and early 2009, my interns are waiting upwards of four months to have someone a) confirm that their record has been transmitted to their state and they are cleared to start the ARE and b) that they have no outstanding bills they have to pay.  I imagine that there may be some uptick in interns applying to take the ARE while they have been laid off and have the time to study, but four months is still pretty extreme.  When my interns call NCARB and finally get through to a live person after spending half their lunch break on hold, they cannot get clear answers as to what is going on with their records and why nothing has happened and what's this extra fee for and so on.

Even worse is a new little situation that one of my interns discovered recently regarding opening your NCARB record and then immediately filing to take the ARE.  Some interns do this because they didn't know the bit about the early-application-for-$100 thing, and they can't afford the $285 once they realize they need to join NCARB.  After three or four years and a couple of raises in the profession, they plan for and save up the $285 and open their NCARB accounts.  They then fill out all the paperwork and have all their old employers fill out and sign the appropriate forms and send them in, finally submitting their records for approval to take the ARE.  Interns used to be able to do all this in a couple of months, and they still can.  However, now it costs an extra $570.  That's not a misprint.  An intern in my office discovered that if an intern submits their record to start testing within twelve months of opening their NCARB account, they must pay an extra $570 on top of the $285.  It's called a "Late Application Fee."  When my intern told me about this, he showed me the Schedule of Fees on NCARB's website.  I was so blown away that I called them myself, sat on hold for about 15 minutes, and finally left a message.  When a customer service rep called me back the next day, I confirmed this fee with him; yes, $570 "Late Application Fee" on top of the $285.  However, I could not get a straight, clear answer out of this gentleman regarding why the fee and why so much.  What exactly was the $570 doing for NCARB?  Is it because a "late" application requires more manpower to be processed?  Is it a different kind of record?  Does it have electrolytes?  He could not tell me much of anything except that "it's the fee you pay for submitting your record late."  I have since emailed someone higher up at NCARB (who was very polite, I might add) for some insight on what the $570 is for--stay tuned for details.

If you want to make it easy on yourself to move and/or get licensed in other states, NCARB is the only game in town for having national acceptance of your licensing process.  And if you want to do IDP in order to maintain that portability as an intern, NCARB is again the only place to register for it.  Note that many architects let their membership in NCARB lapse after they become licensed.  This is totally okay as long as they never have a need for that reciprocity again.  However, if they need to reactivate their NCARB record, that architect in question will have to pay back fees for every year that the license was lapsed.  I have to admit that this makes zero sense to me.  I could see some kind of fee, but not $285+$570 for the record that generally costs $285+$60+$60, and not six years of back fees for a licensed architect (which I don't even want to think about right now).  Bottom line: being a member of IDP and NCARB may be necessary depending on your career path and goals as well as the state in which you start your career.  

Note: When I say (mostly) necessary evils, I mean that they're mostly necessary, not mostly evil.  I know dealing with NCARB can be frustrating as sin, but the point of this blog is not to blame, slam, and talk smack.  I'd rather be helpful than snarky.  And believe me, those who know me know what a snarkoleptic I am; however, sarcasm and bashing doesn't really help anyone and doesn't solve anything.

IDP, NCARB, and (mostly) necessary evils, Part 1 of 2

Through the past few years of mentoring the interns in my office, I've been asked a lot about IDP and NCARB. The questions are generally some form of "What’s the big deal, anyway?  What's the point of IDP and NCARB and all that junk?"  Good question--I sometimes wonder what the point of them is myself.  First though, let's consider the original purpose of their existence. 

IDP is the Intern Development Program, and it's a well-defined process for accounting for your professional experience.  IDP delineates for any architectural intern how much experience s/he needs in a variety of fields (schematic design, bidding and negotiation, construction administration, etc.).  IDP was created because there was no clear standard for what interns should learn in the years before they take their exams.  For example, the advent of CADD meant that many new interns out of college would end up being CAD jockeys for three or four years and suddenly take the exam with little practical experience.  This process hardly produces good professionals and eventually kills a profession.  Enter IDP: suddenly, the nation has a standard for what interns should be learning during their early professional careers, and some (but not all) states made following and being a part of IDP a required part of gaining licensure.  NCARB, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, is the entity that created IDP and it manages the IDP process.  They also manage and control the content of the ARE (Architect Registration Exam).  

While an architect-to-be has to spend a certain number of hours/years working before s/he can take the ARE and get licensed, each state has its own rules in addition to NCARB’s rules (states are the entities that issue the actual license). Some states, like Colorado and Arizona, don't require that an intern follow IDP but do have their own standards that closely resemble IDP and will accept the fulfillment of either process as a means of qualifying to take the ARE.  Some states require that an intern follow IDP and have a record with NCARB, and no other path is acceptable.  So if you live in a state that doesn't require IDP, then what's the point?  Why even join NCARB and go through the hassle?

The short answer is that IDP and NCARB provide accountability and portability of your experience and your eventual license.  If you open an IDP account and keep track of your hours with them, and then for some reason you have to move to a different state (job market is better, have to move back home to care for an ailing relative, have to move for a spouse or partner's job), IDP allows you to take all your experiences with you to your new state in a uniform manner; you have the hours you have once your former employer signed off on them and you're not starting from zero.  Participating in IDP also makes it easier to start in one state and get licensed in another; if either of the states requires IDP to sit for the exam, then you're covered.  

Bear in mind that when you participate in IDP, you're participating in NCARB.  Once an intern earns their license, being a member of NCARB (that is, maintaining your record with them) makes it easier to transfer your qualifications and receive a license in another state.  This process is known as reciprocity; you may have heard architects mention it when going after work in other states.  NCARB can transfer your "okay" to other states and confirm that you have met the minimum national requirements for being an architect.  Some states, most notably California, have extra tests an architect must pass in order to receive a reciprocal license, but at least the big part is done when NCARB sends the word. This is helpful even if you don't ever move out of your state.  If you ever run your own firm and get a job in another state, then getting another license is much easier.

So, joining NCARB and enrolling in IDP are generally good ideas in terms of the portability of your qualifications.  However, there is a dark financial side to being a member of this process, which we'll discuss in Wednesday's post.