February 3, 2021

Attention All Licensing Candidates!

AIA NJ & EPiC are here to help spread useful information to members of the architectural industry, in the hope that issues surrounding the architectural profession are resolved. NCARB has released an update regarding the ongoing delivery of the Architect Registration Examination® (ARE®) 5.0 and issues recently experienced by licensing candidates testing in both, in-person and proctored settings. Please see NCARB’s message below and disseminate the information to all who may be impacted. If you have experienced any recent issues while sitting for the ARE Exams, please contact council-relations@ncarb.org

NCARB continuously monitors exam delivery performance, including all reported technical issues. Our ongoing audit has identified an uptick in the number of technical issues reported since the updated exam launched. However, our test delivery vendors have confirmed that this increase in technical issues is not isolated to the ARE, as it is impacting candidates across multiple programs. Currently, around 13 percent of ARE candidates are reporting technical issues, including both in-person and online exams. These “technical issues” range from a simple error message that may appear on screen and needs to be cleared before continuing, to more serious interruptions when the exam stops responding completely and must be restarted. NCARB has made it clear to our vendors that this performance level is unacceptable. We are working with our vendors to identify and resolve the cause of these issues as quickly as possible.

Should a candidate experience a technical issue with the exam, we ask that they report it to the test proctor and to NCARB by contacting our Customer Relations team at ncarb.org/contact, so that we can address their situation as necessary and include an assessment of their incident in our system diagnosis and refinement.

We know that technical issues can be stressful and distracting—especially under pressure—even if they do not impact the ability to complete the exam administration. NCARB will continue to use all candidate-reported data and work with our vendors to identify and troubleshoot all exam delivery issues.

For questions, please reach out to Council Relations at council-relations@ncarb.org. 

For support from AIA New Jersey, please contact:

Abigail Benjamin, AIA, CNU-A, NCARB

AIA NJ Licensing Advisor
a.bricker2@gmail.com
(201)-298-3418

By Stacey Ruhle Kliesch, AIA, AIA NJ Advocacy Consultant | Posted in Emerging Professionals, Members In Transition | Tagged: #AbigailBenjaminAIA, #EPiC, IDP / ARE, ncarb | Comments (0)