NCARB Certificate Education Alternative

[corbismyhomeboy]

Hello All,

Has anyone started pursuing their NCARB certificate through the new education alternative - gaining 2x the amount of IDP with a BSArch? I have a BSArch, have finished IDP, and am nearing the end of AREs. My state allows you to get a license with a 4-year BSArch with additional experience gained under a licensed architect, but I can't get the NCARB certificate because I don't have an MArch. I'd like to have the certificate to ease reciprocity later because my family lives across the country, and if I ever need to move there (god help me) I'd want to be able to practice. Plus, I live in the northeast where it's easy to get jobs across state lines, you just have to be able to stamp.

Questions: if you have started this process, did you have to notify NCARB somehow you were doing it? Did you just start logging IDP/AXP hours? Can you start logging your hours prior to be licensed?

I was planning to email NCARB for clarification, but not sure if that would be a waste of time.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[Neves]

Hello All,

Has anyone started pursuing their NCARB certificate through the new education alternative - gaining 2x the amount of IDP with a BSArch? I have a BSArch, have finished IDP, and am nearing the end of AREs. My state allows you to get a license with a 4-year BSArch with additional experience gained under a licensed architect, but I can't get the NCARB certificate because I don't have an MArch. I'd like to have the certificate to ease reciprocity later because my family lives across the country, and if I ever need to move there (god help me) I'd want to be able to practice. Plus, I live in the northeast where it's easy to get jobs across state lines, you just have to be able to stamp.

Questions: if you have started this process, did you have to notify NCARB somehow you were doing it? Did you just start logging IDP/AXP hours? Can you start logging your hours prior to be licensed?

I have not needed this process, however, it's NCARB's program I don't understand how you can be in it if they don't even know you're in it?

I was planning to email NCARB for clarification, but not sure if that would be a waste of time.

It would not be a waste of time to do all three; call, e-mail, and post on the NCARB forum about this it's their program, rules, and certificates.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[corbismyhomeboy]

Thanks Neves!

I sent an email to NCARB yesterday, but waiting to hear back. From reading more on the website, it sounds like a program they intend for you to start once you're licensed. I wanted to ease the headache of retroactively counting up 5 years of hours (how much I will have past my IDP reporting once I get my license) and try to log hours now including some older hours. I started an experience report, but it was trying to count my older hours as half credit, which is fine except with the Education Alternative, you're allowed to retroactively count for full credit.

I'll post on their forum in addition to my email and see what I get. Good idea!

[mad5427]

I was one of the first people to get their certificate through the education alternative. I became licensed through Maryland and had to document five years of work experience before I could even sit for the exam. Then I had to do the full IDP. It then took a few years for me to get through the exams. When I went through the process, I just decided to document every hour I've ever worked with NCARB from day one knowing that I was going to try to do the BEA program at some point and since I already had to document the extra years for Maryland, it was the easiest way. I recommend to people now in Maryland that if you are going to do this route, to not document your hours until you have fulfilled the education requirement. This will allow people to sit for the exams while fulfilling AXP. Once licensed, you can go back and document those original hours. If you just start documenting hours it will go toward AXP and in Maryland and you'd need to finish the AXP and then document all the extra time prior to being able to sit for the exam. It didnt' matter for me because you couldn't take the test simultaneously when I started the process.

I stopped documenting the moment the new education alternative was passed as I had about 6x-9x every section of AXP at that point and was licensed for three years.

I was told that the program would be implemented sometime early in 2017 and just waited. As soon as they sent information out to email about it, I did just that and waited for them to contact me. They contacted me late in the year to let me know that they reviewed my degree and that it was indeed architecture related. I have a bachelor of science in interior design from a school where the program is closely related to the architecture program. Therefore I qualified for certification as long as I met the 2x AXP and 3 years licensed. They told me to wait until they rolled out the program and I would automatically have my record reviewed.

This happened the first week in February. They contacted me once the process was started and pointed me to the education tab under My NCARB record. There were three boxes at the top that were bounded by a yellow lines or green lines signalling that each section was or wasn't reviewed yet. The three categories are, "Experience Hours", "Years Licensed", and "Architecture-Related". The degree was already green as it was already reviewed and shown as related. It was only a few days later that the other two boxes changed from yellow to green once their staff reviewed my record. It lists my total hours and years licensed and has a giant check mark left of the boxes stating completed.

Not a week later I got an email that I was certified. I logged in and right next to your name shows your record number. It now has a certificate number next to that. That was it. I was now NCARB certified. A few weeks later I got a nice embossed, signed certificate in the mail.

I immediately applied for reciprocity in DC where I have a couple projects coming up coincidentally. It took less than a week to fill out the request for transmittal and DC's automatic digital application.

There are only a few states that won't accept my certificate. A few states won't accept it, but will still allow direct application, so I still count them as possibilities for reciprocity. There are a few states that aren't sure yet, so the number of NO states could rise to about 10 or so of the 54 jurisdictions. Good enough for me.

[corbismyhomeboy]

Oh gosh, mad5427, and I thought I had it rough with the 5 years total experience requirement! Thanks for sharing your experience. Waiting to document hours sounds like a good idea to me. I emailed NCARB asking about the requirements, and vaguely said, I had to wait until I had been licensed for 3 years before I could even start the process.

I guess rereading through the NCARB requirements, I'm not sure if I want to pursue the certificate since it's for a future "someday maybe" kind of scenario. I'm currently in a small firm where the owner is the only person who stamps, and he has stamps for all of the different states where we do work. I've talked to my PM who says she will gladly approve my hours whenever I decide to pursue.