Steven - I agree that the process sucks. It's a poor measure of one's ability to practice architecture, administered by a tangled and irresponsible bureaucracy.

That said, architecture is a complicated pursuit that goes way beyond the design skills that most schools emphasize in their curriculum and there must be some way to ensure that the gap is filled. Great designers can be horrifying and dangerous architects. We can all agree that the best interest of Architecture is not served when urbanistically or aesthetically inappropriate buildings are designed - I have to stress that it is also not served when good designers scuttle the interests of their clients and community with shitty project management, and ignorance of code issues, detailing or constructibility.

Practicing architect (and the title Architect) is a privilege that is earned by a combination of training, experience, and public examination. The current system gives us great design training in school, tries (poorly) to ensure experience through IDP, and tests our multiple choice skills with the ARE. This system is totally inadequate. Inadequate but not irrelevant - it is the best system that we have now, and it is certainly better than unregulated practice.

If anything, it should be harder to be an architect. I found the ARE's insultingly easy, and it scares the shit out of me that there are people practicing with little more to recommend them than 9 passes. I believe that every state should have something equivalent to California's CSE - an hour and a half long oral exam with something less than a 50% pass rate (this AFTER the applicant has already completed the NCARB administered ARE). Full project scenarios are presented with multiple hypothetical questions which test both the individual's knowledge of the issues that could present themselves on any given project, but also a test of ones verbal and reasoning skills.

Screw Calling yourself and Architect....when you can Call yourself an
Archinect. Most people will never pick up on the difference including
NCARB....(HA HA)

we agree, janosh. i love your paragraph starting with 'that said,...'

idp is clunky but necessary. it doesn't seem that it should be as much of a management problem, but i understand that they may be an understaffed organization.

my beef is with the test, especially, in that it actively encourages that you learn to follow what i think are bad design values as the correct 'answers'.

examples:
- the site design test i took was about how to park the right number of cars on a greenfield site surrounding an object building plopped in the middle of the site.

- after i didn't pass the building design test a couple of times, i talked to norman dorf about what i'd been doing wrong and he told me 'stop trying to design a good building or a building that makes sense, even. you're thinking about it too much. follow the directions ONLY!'

if only there were a way to build ethical, professional, and design 'best practices' into the process. but that would be too controversial i'm sure. the dumbed down test we have now is as much a political byproduct as anything. teaching and testing an ethical (as distinct from legal) professionalism would probably be seen as anti-business or something.