The ACVREP Board of Directors at their April 16, 2018 Board meeting voted to modify, in part, the requirements for applicants to pass the exam within the current guidelines of 24 months.

Currently, an applicant must pass the certification exam within a period of 24 months from their initial exam registration date or the applicant’s Eligibility is cancelled and the applicant must reapply for Eligibility if the applicant wishes to continue to pursue certification.

In reviewing exam data, the Board determined that applicants who did not pass the exam the first time were very quickly rescheduling a retake and often did not pass the second time.  There have been applicants who have taken the exam 6+ times and still have not passed.

As a result of the above analysis, the Board, in order to encourage more preparation between exam retakes, has limited the number of times an applicant can take the exam within the 24-month period to 4 times.

For example, if an applicant takes and fails the exam 4 times within, as an example, 18 months of their initial exam registration date, their Eligibility will be cancelled even though there is 6 months remaining in the 24-month period. With this rule change the Board is hoping to encourage applicants to allow enough time between their exams to study sufficiently so that they pass the certification exam within the 24-month period.

The new rule becomes effective for any applicant whose initial exam registration is October 1, 2018 or after.