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Alumna wins award for exceptional CPA exam score

Madison Farr posing

Madison Farr, bba '20, m acc '21. Photo by Hailey Handy

From The Ichabod - Winter 2023 
By Lindsay Thompson

The Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination is notoriously difficult. The test is presented in four separate sections, usually taken over the course of months, and is required to secure licensure as a U.S. certified public accountant. Simply passing with a score of 75 is an accomplishment. Many don’t pass, which makes what Madison Farr, bba ’20 and m acc ’21, achieved so notable. She not only passed the CPA exam on her first attempt, but she also won an award for her high score.

Farr earned the 2021 Elijah Watt Sells Award presented by the American Institute of CPAs. The award recognizes anyone who has a cumulative average score of 95.50 or higher. She was one of 57 winners out of the 72,000 people who sat for the exam in 2021. It was an accomplishment she worked diligently to achieve, but winning it still surprised her.

“I always had it in the back of my mind that it (the award) was a goal. I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen because of how difficult the exam is,” Farr said. “I was monitoring my scores. As I was about to go into the last test, I realized, ‘I’m really close to accomplishing this! I need this specific score to finish it out.’ Then I got my score back and it ended up being one point higher than I needed for the award.”

Passing the exam and winning the award was the culmination of a lot of hard work. When Farr graduated from Washburn, she immediately embarked on an immersive study regimen. She moved back home to Garden City, Kansas, took four months off from work and studied eight to nine hours a day.

Not only did she employ a laser-focused studying methodology, but she also drew on the relationships and knowledge she had gathered at Washburn. She and two of her fellow master of accountancy graduates worked through the study course on the same schedule, keeping each other motivated and 
on track.

“We were all in the same position once we graduated,” Farr said. “It was helpful to have a support system built right in that I could keep in touch with. I’m glad I chose to do the master of accountancy program in order to meet the requirements to take the CPA exam and also to help prepare me to start studying for it. It is a lot easier to study if you are just reviewing material that you’ve already learned rather than trying to learn it for the first time.”

Life continues to bring momentous developments for Farr. With the exam behind her, and having met the experience requirement in September, she is now a licensed CPA. She works for Lewis Hooper & Dick, LLC in Garden City as a senior associate.

In October, she got married.

Now she’s thinking of taking the certified fraud examiner test sometime in the next year. She explained that in her field of accountancy, lifelong learning and exams come with the territory. Luckily for Farr, she is an award-winning test taker.

Winter 2024 The Ichabod magazine cover with picture of the bell tower and snow fallen on campus

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