3/17 Coronavirus Update—ARE 5.0 Testing and Rescheduling
Hi all,
With the health and safety of test takers and staff in mind, Prometric has decided to temporarily close all test centers in the United States and Canada for the next 30 days, beginning on March 18, 2020.
Prometric may be contacting you directly via email with more information about test center closures.
Have a Division Scheduled?
- If you have an appointment scheduled for later today, you can choose to sit for that examination at your discretion.
- If you have an appointment scheduled within the next three business days, do not go to the test center. Your exam eligibility will be automatically reset the day after your scheduled appointment and NCARB will apply a seat credit to your account within 72 hours of your appointment allowing you to reschedule at no cost.
- Prometric customer service may reach out to you by phone or email to reschedule this appointment before the scheduled time; however, large customer service volumes may delay their ability to contact you within this timeframe.
- If you have an appointment scheduled later than three business days from now, we encourage you to self-serve by logging into your NCARB Record and rescheduling existing appointments at no cost. We recommend rescheduling for late May and into the months of June or July.
- If you have an existing appointment with Prometric and do not reschedule on your own, you will receive instruction directly from Prometric to assist you in rescheduling your appointment at no cost once it is safe to resume testing.
- Prometric currently expects to reopen test centers on April 16, 2020, pending additional developments in the Coronavirus outbreak.
If you are testing outside of the United States or Canada, please check the Prometric website to determine if your test center remains open.
Rolling Clock Considerations
NCARB will be applying a universal 90-day rolling clock extension to all candidates as appropriate. This extension will be applied automatically as soon as possible.
For additional questions and concerns, please contact us or Prometric. Be aware that due to the high volume of requests, wait times may be longer than usual and you may not see changes to your NCARB Record immediately.
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Please clarify what "all candidates as appropriate" means in "NCARB will be applying a universal 90-day rolling clock extension to all candidates as appropriate. This extension will be applied automatically as soon as possible."
Does that mean all candidates will automatically receive a 90-day extension? Only candidates where Prometric is shutting down? Only candidates who had exams scheduled during the closure period? Not being able to test for an unknown amount of time is impacting all of us.
Thanks!
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I would like to echo Jessica’s question, NCARB. Everyone is being impacted right now and everyone should be getting extensions to their rolling clock no matter where they are on their ARE journey. Using “universal” and “as appropriate” in the same sentence when discussing candidates rolling clocks is contradictory. Please clarify.
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I don't think anyone is complaining that they can't test due to the crisis. Don't get me wrong, it stinks, but is what is necessary at this time.
To Jessica and Allison's point, candidates typically set aside their lives in order to study, in a lot of cases for 2-3 months per exam. For example, if Prometric doesn't open for another 3 months, that's 5-6 months erased from the rolling clock. We shouldn't be expected to put our lives on hold to study and retain information or an indefinite period of time. Hence why the clarification is needed on the rolling clock extension. Is it 90 days for those that it is deemed "appropriate", or is it 90 days for all candidates? It gives peace of mind to hit the "pause button" on studying.
Cheers
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Hey all,
I want to provide some clarity on the 90-day rolling clock extension. This extension will apply to all testers that currently have a rolling clock. Testers that have not passed a divisional exam will not get the extension because they don't have a rolling clock to extend. Hopefully this makes sense!
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Sean Dorsy I am in the same boat. Extremely frustrated with this issue. I have been preparing 1.5 months for an exam that I was set to take on Monday. It was cancelled and still cannot be rescheduled as Prometric has yet to reach out. I tried calling and got the run around. I am afraid those of us who were just about to test are going to be extremely delayed as slots fill up. NCARB is there any support you can offer to people like myself and Sean? I also had my last three exams scheduled and this is really a mess for those of us who were just about to test because we may now have to wait additional months after scheduling opens back up as the first available dates will all be gone.
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Thank you Marie Acalin.
NCARB, the 3/17 notice stated: "If you have an appointment scheduled within the next three business days, do not go to the test center. Your exam eligibility will be automatically reset the day after your scheduled appointment".
My PPD test was scheduled for 3/18 and has yet to reset in the system. I am unable to rebook my exam and will likely not be able to book a preferred week. I have tried contacting NCARB but have only received an automated response back. Thanks for your help.
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NCARB could I please get some help? I have still not been contacted by anyone and have been locked out of rescheduling my exam since they were cancelled. I just phoned your office and got pretty poor service from someone who did not even seem to understand what is going on. I am extremely frustrated and I know many others are. As previously mentioned it is not the cancellation (we understand that), but the fact that those of us with immediate test are unable to reschedule as others are able to, meaning the first slots will not be open to us, which does not seem right considering we were prepared to test right away.
Sean Dorsy have you been able to reschedule yet?
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Marie Acalin, I have not been able to reschedule. My exam scheduled for 3/18 (the first day of the cancelations) still states "awaiting score". Originally, we were advised that we would be able to reschedule the day after the canceled exam. I completely echo what you stated. I too contacted NCARB by phone and by email, and they stated they would respond directly to my email. The email response (from "George") I received was a generic email that did not address my concerns. It was a copy and paste from the 3/17 notice NCARB posted. I have contacted NCARB on three other occasions and have not heard back.
I understand the need to have closed the test centers, however, it is not fair to limit certain test-takers from rescheduling and not everyone. NCARB should have frozen ALL rescheduling until being able to unlock the system for everyone. I expect NCARB to remedy the situation so that I am able to take my exams as soon as possible.
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Sean Dorsy I completely agree, also want to note to everyone that when NCARB returned my phone call my iPhone showed the call coming in from Pakistan and "scam likely." I listened to the voicemail to see it was them. Seems odd, just want to give everyone a heads up should they receive a similar call. I mentioned this to the NCARB person who just noted it "was odd." Do not want you miss their calls, though I am with Sean that they seem to get us nowhere. I tried to get the guy on the phone to understand that there has to be someone at NCARB who can reset my testing eligibility and he repeatedly told me there wasn't, just seems crazy that NCARB doesn't have the last word on our statue. He also did not seem to understand my frustration for the time we have put into this only to be unable to reschedule and loose open spots while we wait and get further pushed back. It would be nice to get some interaction with someone at NCARB who actually understands the process, our frustration, and the issue we are pointing out to them. He repeatedly wanted to say things are strange because of corona, it is outside their control etc....Which is not what we are saying, we understand that and just want to be able to reschedule like everyone else is able. What is inside their control is releasing our exams which many of us have been locked out of rescheduling for over a week now. He kept telling me 72 more hours etc, but that hasn't worked thus far for others per this forum and its just more waiting time and no answers.
Jordan Margolis my test did something similar the other day so I think you are right that it has something do with your time distance related to exam.
Thank you both for being active on here, I know there must be many others who are in the same situation and the only way to get anywhere seems for us to use our collective voices.
NCARB can we please get some assistance?
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Hey Everyone,
I just posted two updates under the General Discussion section of the Community. This info was also sent out via email to all candidates with impacted exams.
Exams scheduled between March 18th and March 31st - https://are5community.ncarb.org/hc/en-us/community/posts/360041874454
Exams scheduled between April 1st and April 15th - https://are5community.ncarb.org/hc/en-us/community/posts/360041874534
We are currently in the process of issuing everyone who had an exam between March 18th and March 31st a new divisional testing eligibility and seat credit for their cancelled exam. As stated in the post, we will be complete with the process within 72 hours. At that point, you all will be able to reschedule your exams.
We really appreciate your patience!
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NCARB, Thanks for the feedback. I just received an email that NCARB has provided a seat credit. My PPD exam is still locked.
Additionally, I noticed that the dates for 2 other exams have changed. Luckily I had a screenshot from yesterday to compare to. For reference, I had rescheduled my exams on 3/17 to account for Covid-19, and again a few days later when I realized that I would not likely be able to schedule PPD in sync with PDD. What is the reason the exam dates defaulted back?
3/23
3/24
edit: The dates in the 3/23 screenshot are strategically preferred. The 3/24 screenshot allows for a shorter time period to book my PPD exam, which is locked. I would like to make it known that the current situation of not being able to reschedule is making it difficult to effectively study and strategize my approach to the exams. The date of my PPD exam directly affects the date of my other exams. I am unsure why my scheduled exams, outside of the cancelation period, have been rescheduled.
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