Students opting for the cream (Chronicle of Higher Ed article)

Do you have access to the entire list? Unfortunately, I do not (and, apparently, they are not creating the passage rate reports after 2019 until they’ve finished switching to a new testing format).

I was, however, able to find the NCAA Bracketologies that were done around March Madness, using a school’s CPA passage rates. Some schools that are not in the list of 9 schools that seem to have passage rates over (or close to) 75% are:

  • U. of Colorado: 79.2%
  • U. of Miami 70.8%
  • Villanova, 71.4%
  • Duke, 75.7%
  • U. of Oklahoma: 75.2%
  • U. of Notre Dame: 84.1%
  • Michigan State: 73.1%
  • U. of Missouri: 79.6%
  • Baylor: 70.6%
  • James Madison: 74.7%
  • U. of Tennessee: 81.8%
  • U. of Georgia: 88.4%
  • South Dakota State: 76.9%
  • U. of Pennsylvania: 90.6%
  • U. of Oregon: 71.4%
  • Indiana: 71.5%
  • Wofford: 74.4%
  • U. of North Carolina: 76.7%
  • Georgetown: 81.8%
  • U. of Iowa: 74.3%
  • Davidson: 76%
  • Gonzaga: 76.1%
  • U. of Wisconsin - Green Bay: 70.3%
  • Stanford: 87.5%
    *U. of South Carolina: 72.4%

Interestingly, Harvard, whose men team made the NCAA tournament in 2015, had a 66.7% passage rate that year.

Also, readers should note that all of the passage rates being quoted are first-time pass rates. In doing a bit of reading, most sections of the CPA exam have about a 50% passage rate, but the rate of passing all 4 exams on the first try is about 20-25%. I am unsure, but I believe that the percentages by the colleges are the first time pass rates after having taken all 4 sections of the exam. Thus, one is comparing schools that are passing 70+% of their students compared to an average of 20-25%. Moreover, I’d be shocked if there weren’t other schools with higher percentages…their basketball teams just didn’t get to the NCAA tournament in 2015 or 2016 for me to have easy access to see their scores.




3 Likes