Who Is The Youngest Person To Ever Pass The CPA Exam?

by

This is the story of James “Jimmy” Chilimigras, the 15-year-old who broke an 8-year World Record and became the youngest CPA candidate to EVER pass the CPA exam (As of 2024).

The CPA exam is one of the most difficult professional exams in the world.

According to the AICPA, it takes an average of 6 attempts for most CPA candidates to pass. Which means the average accountant will fail twice on their journeys to failing.

Continue Reading...

Is Kesler CPA Review Worth It?

by

Read this if you are wondering if Kesler CPA Review is right for you and your situation.

Picking the right CPA exam study supplements, mentorship and support system is no easy task.

My hope is that this article will help clear it all up for you and connect you to the right support you need to pass the CPA exam fast.

Disclaimer: I am the founder of Kesler CPA Review and some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. Please only use my links if I have helped you in your CPA resource purchasing decisions.

Is Kesler CPA Review Worth It?

Kesler CPA Review (formerly just Ultimate CPA Exam Guide) has been the #1 most trusted CPA exam support system since 2015.

Helping hundreds of CPA candidates around the world each year discover HOW to study, use their CPA review course and optimize their time and routines.

The mentorship piece of Kesler CPA Review has also been trusted by CPA review course companies like Wiley CPA, UWorld Roger, Gleim CPA and others to help their candidates master the CPA exam passing process.

In short, if you don’t know how to pass the CPA exam, then Kesler CPA Review is exactly what you need and will be worth it for the time and frustrations it will save you from.

Check out the latest Kesler CPA Review promos HERE

Who Should Use Kesler CPA Review?

Kesler CPA Review is perfect for anyone just getting started with the CPA exam process, currently in the midst of studying and starting to lose steam, or anyone who has failed the CPA exam and needs help with retakes or mental confidence.

Specifically, if you are using Wiley CPA, UWorld Roger CPA, Surgent, Universal or even Becker CPA then you will be in good hands.

What Makes Kesler CPA Review Different?

Kesler CPA Review provides four primary resources that will enhance your study experience with all of those courses.

The key difference between the major CPA review course companies and Kesler CPA Review is that they don’t provide pro-active mentorship guidance. They just wait for you to have questions to ask their team.

Which can be fine, but many times CPA candidates don’t know what questions to ask until it’s too late!

1) CPA Exam Mentorship/Coaching

As a member of Kesler CPA Review you get bonus access to Ultimate CPA Exam Guide mentorship.

This self-study mentorship course will help you with 7 primary skills required to pass the CPA exam

1) Mastering your CPA exam mental mindset

2) Crafting the perfect schedule to passing the CPA exam

3) Optimizing your study routines to cut the busy work out

4) How to prioritize your time, relationships and work schedule while studying

5) How to use your available study materials, how to study and how to grasp what you learn and retain it

6) How to master test anxiety, multiple choice and task-based simulations.

7) How to prepare for passing/failing a section and how to move forward.

2) Accountability Partner Program

Kesler CPA understands that you can learn and develop the skills you need to pass the CPA exam, BUT if you don’t have accountability then it’s nearly impossible to stick to your plan.

This is why as a member of Kesler CPA they give you access to an accountability partner program to ensure the Kesler CPA team and the people you want involved in the process are there to push you and motivate you to keep going.

3) Kesler CPA Study Supplements

Kesler CPA Review is different.

They don’t use the same AICPA released questions as everyone else.

Their focus is on crafting questions from scratch with their amazing team of CPAs and professors to ensure you aren’t seeing the same questions over and over.

This is important because memorizing answers is not the key to passing the CPA exam.

You need to understand the WHY behind each question.

This is why Kesler CPA Review includes a flashcard creator and hundreds of KeslerCards to ensure you not only get the answers correct but know WHY you got the practice questions right or wrong.

They also include a mobile app that syncs with their desktop study platform to ensure you can access all of this on the go.

Kesler CPA vs a CPA review course

Since Kesler CPA is only a study supplement, we do recommend that you use a full CPA review course that includes full video lectures, a textbook and thousands of practice questions.

Kesler CPA has a test bank of made from scratch practice questions that are mapped directly to the AICPA blueprints which makes it easy to use Kesler CPA with any review course hand in hand to study.

TLDR: Kesler CPA teaches you HOW to pass and gives you study supplements. The other courses give you a complete CPA review course that gives you everything you need to learn to pass but lacks the support you need to pass.

4) 1-on-1 Tutoring

The major CPA review courses do not offer 1-on-1 video tutoring for their users.

Kesler CPA Review gives subscribers access to monthly tutoring credits.

One tutor credit is the equivalent of 30 minutes of research and video explanation time.

Kesler CPA Review found the most efficient way to tutor candidates is not by doing live zoom calls but by question submission and then the tutoring working in the background and shooting a personalized video response.

The other courses typically offer email and limited chat support but video support is more effective because it allows tutors to show work, provide in-depth examples and better explanations.

It’s the perfect way to outsource your time to the Kesler CPA team so you can get back to studying (or having fun).

Next Steps

Well, Kesler CPA Review (in my biased opinion) is the clear choice.

If you feel you need a CPA exam supplement to boost your scores you really have two choices.


Continue Reading…

who has highest pass rate

Which CPA Review Course Has The Highest CPA Exam Pass Rate?

by

To find the CPA Review Course with the best pass rate we have to do some digging first.

Here are four steps to understanding CPA Review Course pass rates:

  1. What are the real CPA Exam pass rates?
  2. What is the source for the advertised pass rate?
  3. What are the financial implications for advertising the highest pass rate
  4. The downside to trusting an advertised pass rate

Every CPA Review Course claims to have an 80-90% pass rate.

For example, these CPA review courses all claim to have the highest CPA exam pass rate for their students:

At face value, these numbers sound amazing and make passing the CPA exam seem as easy as buying one of these courses.

But herein lies the problem…

 

What are the real CPA exam pass rates?

The CPA Exam pass rates at an individual level are significantly lower than 80-90%.

For example, here are the latest pass rates by CPA exam section released by the AICPA.

Section Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative
AUD 47.97% 65.29% 56.89% 47.50% 52.84%
BEC 61.76% 76.92% 69.89% 60.77% 65.56%
FAR 46.37% 62.86% 55.67% 43.53% 49.98%
REG 55.42% 75.97% 66.12% 58.00% 62.29%

 

Keep in mind that these pass rates are at the individual section level and do NOT account for the fact that you have to sit for all four sections.

The more sections you take the higher your odds of failure.

Best estimates are that the real pass rate without failing any sections is likely much closer to 20-30%.

I tell you this not to scare or overwhelm you, but to give you some much-needed perspective and to help you mentally prepare for this journey.

 

How Do The CPA Review Course Companies Calculate Their Pass Rates?

As a former PwC auditor, I don’t take anything at face value and neither should you.

If you look at the fine print of these pass rate calculations, it quickly becomes clear that they aren’t accurate OR independently verified.

Per Becker’s website:

Pass rate based on those students that met Exam Day Ready threshold and self-reported scores to us in 2020 and is calculated by dividing the total sections passed by total sections attempted across all qualifying students. “Exam Day Ready” threshold means students watched 80% of our lecture videos, answered 80% of our MCQs and TBSs correctly and scored a minimum of 50% on our simulated exams. Scores may be reported at any time. We recognize there is an inherent bias to these results as students who do not pass may not share this information with us.

As Becker CPA Review admits (and this is consistent across all courses) they rely on self-reporting from their students.

This means that a student will have to tell Becker that they passed.

This fails to include people who failed and gave up and never told them.

It also doesn’t include people who use multiple courses or supplements etc…

Unfortunately, the AICPA doesn’t poll students on which CPA review course they used to study for the section, which is the only source that I would trust.

 

Financial Implications Of Highest Pass Rate

Sadly there is a huge financial incentive for having an unbelievably high pass rate.

The CPA Review Course industry is also highly competitive and each course is looking for anything they can advertise to give themselves an advantage.

Unfortunately, uneducated CPA candidates often fall for these marketing shenanigans and it gives them a false sense of security.

What’s even worse is that when they dive into their first section and then end up failing it mentally destroys them.

I know this to be true because I experienced it first hand!

I failed and because I put my trust in a pass rate I immediately made the assumption I wasn’t smart enough to pass.

The truth ended up being that I was just studying the wrong way and that failure was built into the exam to teach me this invaluable lesson!

Thankfully you are here today researching this issue and now know the truth.

You should ignore pass rates altogether and just assume that each section of the CPA exam is equally difficult and that you need to give it everything you’ve got.

Meaning, not only do you need to research the right way to sign up for the CPA exam but you also want to research study tips and strategies to ensure you hit the ground running.

 

How to Actually Find The Right CPA Review Course For Your Situation

I have been helping connect CPA candidates to the best CPA review course for their learning style since 2013.

I have spent hundreds of hours researching and learning how CPA review courses work and how to use them efficiently.

The important thing to know is that not all CPA review courses are made the same.

The real difference is how the information is presented.

Depending on your learning style… you will like some CPA review courses and HATE others.

To help you quickly figure this out I put together an easy-to-read CPA Review Course comparison.

Learn More About The

Top CPA Review Courses


Continue Reading…