Please write a critical review report to the article using two parts synopsis and critical comments to improve the paper. ABSTRACT This study examines the effects of university affiliated CPA review courses on CPA exam passing rates, using results from the computer-based exam. We undertake a regression analysis and find that, compared to not offering an affiliated CPA exam review, CPA exam passing rates are higher at accounting programs that offer CPA review courses that are associated with the accounting program but not offered as for-credit courses. Offering a for-credit CPA review course, providing it through a continuing education center, or giving motivation for students to take an outside CPA review course are not shown to improve the CPA exam passing rate relative to offering no review. A key novelty of this study is that we examine the different types of CPA review affiliation and CPA exam performance. Further tests show that our results are robust to self-selection. This paper can provide accounting programs and universities with assistance in making important decisions, which are whether and in what form to affiliate with a CPA review course. Our evidence indicates that a complementary approach to CPA exam preparation regular coursework supplemented by coverage of a CPA exam review helps in passing the CPA exam. Keywords: Uniform CPA examination, CPA review course, CPA licensure 3 Schools CPA Review Course Affiliations and Success on the Uniform CPA Examination INTRODUCTION Becoming a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is a goal of many individuals entering the accounting field and passing the CPA exam is a significant accounting career milestone. Since earning a CPA license is essential in public accounting and either essential or important for many private and governmental accounting positions, employers usually want to hire accountants who have passed the uniform CPA exam or have the potential to pass it (Allen and Woodland, 2006). As a result, one of various goals of many university1 accounting programs is for students to pass the CPA exam (Allen and Woodland, 2006; Bline, Perreault, and Zheng, 2016; Gaynor and Askew, 2017). Due to the significance of the CPA exam and the large amount of material it covers, many people who sit for the exam enroll in a CPA review course. Therefore, in order to encourage students to take the CPA exam and help students study for the exam, some accounting programs and universities affiliate with a CPA review course. There are different ways that accounting programs and universities can offer or associate with CPA review courses. They can offer a CPA review as a credit hour (required or elective) course that is part of the accounting curriculum (hereafter termed Credit affiliation). On the other hand, an accounting program can provide a non-credit CPA review course that is included in the accounting program such that students are required or encouraged to take that course as part of their accounting plans of study (hereafter termed Program affiliation). A major difference between program affiliation and credit affiliation is that Program affiliation considers a CPA review course as a complement to the curriculum whereas Credit affiliation makes a CPA review a substitute to another course in 1 We use the term university to mean university or college. Also, we use university and school interchangeably. 4 the students plan of study. Another method in which a CPA review course can be delivered is through a universitys continuing (or executive) education center (hereafter called Center affiliation). Since there is an on-campus CPA review course, students access to a CPA review is enhanced. However, although there is an association between the university and the CPA review course, the relationship between the accounting program and the CPA review is limited. Another form of affiliation (other than no affiliation) we term Motivation affiliation. Accounting programs (or their accounting student organizations) in this classification provide encouragement for students to take an outside review course by offering discounts, scholarships, informational seminars, or informational links for outside CPA reviews. Also, programs are deemed to have this type of affiliation if there is an outside CPA review course that uses the universitys campus location but has no other connection with the university. Finally, some universities have no affiliation with a CPA review course. Thus, if a student wishes to take a CPA review course, he/she will be on his or her own when it comes to selecting and paying for a CPA review course. This study examines the effects of accounting program affiliated CPA review courses on school-level CPA exam passing rates, using results based on the computer-based CPA exam, which has been in effect since 2004. A number of studies that have investigated factors contributing to passing the CPA exam have considered CPA review courses, which are often offered by outside private organizations (e.g. Reilly and Stettler, 1972, Dunn and Hall, 1984). The results regarding the effectiveness of CPA review courses have been mixed. However, we examine whether accounting programs can improve their students CPA exam passing rates if their universities affiliate with a CPA review course. To our knowledge, Smith, Laband, and Schick (2002) is the only other study that examines the impact of university affiliated (in-house) CPA review courses on CPA exam performance. They find no association between in-house 5 CPA review courses and CPA exam passing rates. Their paper is not clear on how it defines an in-house CPA review course and does not distinguish between types of affiliation. We utilize National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) candidate CPA performance data on a school-by-school basis for the 2013 and 2014 CPA examinations. We regress CPA exam passing rate on the level of university CPA review course affiliation, along with controls for candidate, program, and faculty characteristics. Furthermore, we undertake several robustness tests, including the Heckman statistical procedure to address self-selection bias. We find that that having a Program affiliation with a CPA review course leads to a higher CPA exam passing rate. However, having Credit or Center affiliation with a CPA review course, or offering motivation to take an outside CPA review course is not shown to lead to a higher CPA exam passing rate. Descriptive statistics suggest that accounting programs with Program, Center, and Motivation affiliations are on-average more selective, more likely to have AACSB accreditation, and more likely to include graduate degrees than are accounting programs with no CPA review affiliation. On the other hand, there are few significant differences in such characteristics between programs with Credit affiliation and those with no affiliation. Thus, we conjecture that Program affiliation, not Credit affiliation, increases CPA exam passing rates due to one or more of the following reasons: 1) CPA review courses provide the most benefit to programs that have on-average higher performing students, who are more likely to make a serious effort to pass the CPA exam, 2) unlike a CPA review course with Program affiliation, a CPA review course with Credit affiliation replaces a regular course, thereby taking away concept-based fundamental accounting knowledge that can help on the CPA exam, or 3) 6 programs offering CPA review courses for credit may have recently initiated them in an attempt to improve low CPA exam passing rates. With respect to our control variables, we find that the school CPA exam passing rate is positively associated with AACSB accounting program accreditation, the percentage of accounting faculty members with PhDs or DBAs, the universitys average SAT score, and the selectivity of the university (Raghunandan, Reed, and Brown, 2003; Boone, Legoria, Seifert, and Stammerjohan, 2006; Barilla, Jackson, and Mooney, 2008; Nagle, Menk, and Rau, 2018). However, we document a negative association of CPA passing rate with candidate age, student age, delay in taking the exam after graduation, and location in states2 that require only 120 credit hours to sit for the CPA exam (Dunn and Hall, 1984; Gramling and Rosman, 2009; Morgan, 2015). This study contributes to the accounting education literature in that it examines the association between the different types of CPA review course affiliation and CPA exam performance. We show that offering not-for-credit accounting program affiliated CPA review courses improves CPA exam passing rates, which should encourage programs that do not offer CPA review courses to give such courses serious consideration. The findings indicate that a complementary approach to CPA exam preparation regular coursework supplemented by coverage of a CPA exam review helps in passing the CPA exam. We do not provide significant evidence that offering the CPA review course through a continuing education center improves the passing rate. This is possibly because compared to the Program affiliation, the accounting program with a Center affiliation has less influence over the material and instructors in the course or is less likely to advise students to take such a CPA review course.