Advanced placement and CPA exam performance: Implications for recruitment of quality students into college accounting programs

Abstract

Recruiting top talent into accounting careers is essential to the continued prosperity of the profession, and the AICPA Pathways Commission has speculated that an advanced placement accounting course could increase recruitment of quality students into accounting programs of study. Although the College Board does not currently offer an accounting course for advanced placement credit, research outside of accounting does suggest that advanced placement students, in general, may represent a high-quality pool for recruitment into college accounting programs. The current study explores this possibility by examining relationships between students' advanced placement engagement and success and their subsequent performance on the CPA exam. Data provided by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) for 1005 CPA exam takers, along with additional survey information, shows that high school students who engaged in advanced placement courses and passed related exams experienced relatively greater success on the CPA exam compared to students who did not take or pass AP courses. Additional analyses using Bloom's Taxonomy, suggest that certain advanced placement courses, those that focus on higher-order thinking skills, have the highest correspondence with CPA exam success. The current research is the first in the accounting literature to provide empirical evidence showing advanced placement to be an important factor when recruiting high school students into college accounting programs.