I stopped documenting my IDP +-12yrs Ago. I have recorded most of my work over a career of 22 years, but for numerous reasons, I never followed through on getting anything signed, nor did I start an IDP record until recently.
With the following stipulations that I can probably get my supervisors/advisors to sign, I am in Georgia & have just setup my IDP Record, so I should be able to avoid NCARBs '6 month rule'.
My questions are these:
1. Is it going to be a problem to submit everything at once?
2. Is it better to 'back date' or just date everything as of the actual signing date as done by my supervisors/advisors?
3. Is NCARB the 'pain' that I have heard? Are they going to be extra-bureaucratic and nit-picky about Using their (badly done) forms? In other words, will they be extra-cantankerous because I didn't start submitting right out of school?
BTW, years ago, when I did graduate, I found the forms to be filled out by hand to be a totally backwards approach. As such, I did what was unheard of at the time - I began putting my company timesheet onto Excel & wrote a macro to extract & convert those hours to Value Units (the infamous VUs).
Since I put all of this into electronic form, I waited over the years for NCARB to finally get w/ the times. I'm not sure that they did, but I plan on submitting printouts of my Excel S/Sheets.
*Will they force me to redo all of my work & go through an unnecessary,
tedious drill to transcribe by hand?
Perhaps the spectre of draconian paperwork added to my delay. Please tell me that I get more for my money?!
As I understand, IDP 2.o now makes that unnecessary - you can just record hours. Thanks NCARB, why didn't you do that 22 years ago?
Anyway, if any of ya'll have similar experiences, I'd love to hear from you. And, for those of you ready to give me a hard time for waiting so long, save your energy for taking the ARE. I've stood enough pestering by everyone over the years and I doubt that any internet trolls can be as annoying as my family!
I believe that a significant portion of my graduating class never got licensed. At GA Tekk, back then, their degree was caught between a lot of registration fluctuations.
if your former employers are cool, then it's easy. just make a general list of the different categories you served and approximate the hours for each category. then send it on to them to be signed like anything else. of course, NCARB frowns upon the practice for obvious reasons, but 12 years of experience is 12 years of experience. it may cost a little more (typically starting and completing your IDP within a certain time frame costs i want to say an extra 100 dollars or so) but should be relatively simple.
I submitted 10 years or so of experience with 3 individual firms (each with their corresponding supervisors) last december...by the end of february of this year, all the credits were reviewed and accepted, and my idp record showed that it was complete...i have not asked for the IDP record to be transmitted to the state board, which would complete the idp process (and their "final evaluation) and lets me start the ARE...the reason is the 600$ or so fee you have to pay for them to transmit the record within one year of signing up the idp, so i will wait one more month, and pay nothing...until then, i can't say the process was successful, but so far so good...a friend of mine with 15 years of experience did the same thing at the same time, and asked for the transmittal 1 month ago, and everything was done by last week...so, all went ok...
things to watch out for: make sure your supervisor worked in the office for the entire time you were recording, and was a registered architect in the state you were working on, at the time you were working on. and yes, i did date the time i was reporting, and made sure i did make sure that i only reported credits that the supervisors were comfortable in signing for (in other words, i was truthful, which is not a problem when you've been doing this for over 10 years)...don't forget to make sure you are not reporting too many credits for the time you worked on each office, under each supervisor...
hope it helps...idp has served as a horrible tool for my procrastination, and i am glad that it's (almost) over....good luck!
The extra cost & rule changes over the years were enough to just make me kick myself more. But, once I finally did manage to put the boot up my axx, I moved on from beating myself up & am moving forward.
Funny thing is, I don't really see a financial benefit to being able to get those 'post-nominal' letters - I just view it as this big thorn in my side that drives me nuts more & more each year - let that be a lesson to you young procrastinators!
This is my 2 cents, so take it for what its worth (I am currently enrolled in IDP, and have not yet completed it)
1. Is it going to be a problem to submit everything at once?
- I don't have any experience with submitting massive amounts all at once, but I know it has been done, and approved for long time periods. I think just so long as you have everything properly documented (like it sounds like you do), it shouldn't be that big of an issue.
2. Is it better to 'back date' or just date everything as of the actual signing date as done by my supervisors/advisors?
-Again, don't really have direct experience in this regard, but I would recommend dating everything as of the actual signing date done by your supervisors. If NCARB decides to pick @ your record or whatever, it might look strange to try and "update" all the dates, even though you are clearly somewhere else, working elsewhere, etc.
3. Is NCARB the 'pain' that I have heard? Are they going to be extra-bureaucratic and nit-picky about Using their (badly done) forms? In other words, will they be extra-cantankerous because I didn't start submitting right out of school?
-Dealing with NCARB is a pain. Although lately, I will say that they have been better, or maybe I have just found my way around their system a little better. In my experience, you have long telephone waits, brief discussions with the phone operators, and are left feeling unsatisfied with the answers that they provide. Each time you talk with someone on the phone, get their NAME (in writing) along with the date you spoke to them and the basic stuff they said. That way you have some way of holding them accountable. I have also tried emailing them my question(s), and the turn around time is ridiculous. I mean like probably 2 weeks before I got anything back (and even then my question wasn't answered to my liking). I don't think the forms are so bad, if you have your hours, just divide them by 8 to get your units and write them in the form. And yes, I would use THEIR forms, not your own, because if they decide that your forms aren't to their liking you won't hear about it until YOU contact them (weeks later) and ask them what is going on, only for them to tell you "oh sorry, you submitted everything on the incorrect form, so you will have to resubmit your hours". So yes, I would use their forms. If you are still in contact with your former supervisors, you might try and log your hours using their new E-EVR system (or something like that) that allows you to submit everything over the internet, and they send an email to your supervisor asking if what you submitted is true, and then your supervisor can just approve it like that. It is supposedly much faster, although I haven't used it. What I do know, is that when I submit my hours by snail mail, it usually takes at least a month to a month and a half before my record shows that I have actually completed my most recent report. I really wouldn't worry too much about submitting all your hours at once, I know that people do it and it works for them. I would get on this sooner rather than later seeing that everything is changing and you won't be able to submit all your hours in the (near) future.
I'm starting the process at the moment. Only trying to go back about 4 or 5 years of experience. Its tough getting in contact with past employers as I worked over seas for a while. The NCARB websites are TERRIBLE!!!!
I think NCARB's going to getting a lot of people submitting backlogs of experience in the next couple months.
btw - I had no problem when I submitted about 5 years of work several years ago... they didn't count any jobs that were less than 6 months, though... and they were real sticklers about it... I had a little over 5 months experience working for a GC who happened to be a licensed architect, and they wouldn't take it, so I had to spend another 2 years getting CA experience.
I was glad when I started it because I realized where the gaps were in what experience I should have been getting up to that point.
Who's done Retroactive IDPee-ing?
OK, I know, I know....
I stopped documenting my IDP +-12yrs Ago. I have recorded most of my work over a career of 22 years, but for numerous reasons, I never followed through on getting anything signed, nor did I start an IDP record until recently.
With the following stipulations that I can probably get my supervisors/advisors to sign, I am in Georgia & have just setup my IDP Record, so I should be able to avoid NCARBs '6 month rule'.
My questions are these:
1. Is it going to be a problem to submit everything at once?
2. Is it better to 'back date' or just date everything as of the actual signing date as done by my supervisors/advisors?
3. Is NCARB the 'pain' that I have heard? Are they going to be extra-bureaucratic and nit-picky about Using their (badly done) forms? In other words, will they be extra-cantankerous because I didn't start submitting right out of school?
BTW, years ago, when I did graduate, I found the forms to be filled out by hand to be a totally backwards approach. As such, I did what was unheard of at the time - I began putting my company timesheet onto Excel & wrote a macro to extract & convert those hours to Value Units (the infamous VUs).
Since I put all of this into electronic form, I waited over the years for NCARB to finally get w/ the times. I'm not sure that they did, but I plan on submitting printouts of my Excel S/Sheets.
*Will they force me to redo all of my work & go through an unnecessary,
tedious drill to transcribe by hand?
Perhaps the spectre of draconian paperwork added to my delay. Please tell me that I get more for my money?!
As I understand, IDP 2.o now makes that unnecessary - you can just record hours. Thanks NCARB, why didn't you do that 22 years ago?
Anyway, if any of ya'll have similar experiences, I'd love to hear from you. And, for those of you ready to give me a hard time for waiting so long, save your energy for taking the ARE. I've stood enough pestering by everyone over the years and I doubt that any internet trolls can be as annoying as my family!
I am in a similar boat, and am curious as to what people say.
I believe that a significant portion of my graduating class never got licensed. At GA Tekk, back then, their degree was caught between a lot of registration fluctuations.
if your former employers are cool, then it's easy. just make a general list of the different categories you served and approximate the hours for each category. then send it on to them to be signed like anything else. of course, NCARB frowns upon the practice for obvious reasons, but 12 years of experience is 12 years of experience. it may cost a little more (typically starting and completing your IDP within a certain time frame costs i want to say an extra 100 dollars or so) but should be relatively simple.
I submitted 10 years or so of experience with 3 individual firms (each with their corresponding supervisors) last december...by the end of february of this year, all the credits were reviewed and accepted, and my idp record showed that it was complete...i have not asked for the IDP record to be transmitted to the state board, which would complete the idp process (and their "final evaluation) and lets me start the ARE...the reason is the 600$ or so fee you have to pay for them to transmit the record within one year of signing up the idp, so i will wait one more month, and pay nothing...until then, i can't say the process was successful, but so far so good...a friend of mine with 15 years of experience did the same thing at the same time, and asked for the transmittal 1 month ago, and everything was done by last week...so, all went ok...
things to watch out for: make sure your supervisor worked in the office for the entire time you were recording, and was a registered architect in the state you were working on, at the time you were working on. and yes, i did date the time i was reporting, and made sure i did make sure that i only reported credits that the supervisors were comfortable in signing for (in other words, i was truthful, which is not a problem when you've been doing this for over 10 years)...don't forget to make sure you are not reporting too many credits for the time you worked on each office, under each supervisor...
hope it helps...idp has served as a horrible tool for my procrastination, and i am glad that it's (almost) over....good luck!
The extra cost & rule changes over the years were enough to just make me kick myself more. But, once I finally did manage to put the boot up my axx, I moved on from beating myself up & am moving forward.
Funny thing is, I don't really see a financial benefit to being able to get those 'post-nominal' letters - I just view it as this big thorn in my side that drives me nuts more & more each year - let that be a lesson to you young procrastinators!
This is my 2 cents, so take it for what its worth (I am currently enrolled in IDP, and have not yet completed it)
1. Is it going to be a problem to submit everything at once?
- I don't have any experience with submitting massive amounts all at once, but I know it has been done, and approved for long time periods. I think just so long as you have everything properly documented (like it sounds like you do), it shouldn't be that big of an issue.
2. Is it better to 'back date' or just date everything as of the actual signing date as done by my supervisors/advisors?
-Again, don't really have direct experience in this regard, but I would recommend dating everything as of the actual signing date done by your supervisors. If NCARB decides to pick @ your record or whatever, it might look strange to try and "update" all the dates, even though you are clearly somewhere else, working elsewhere, etc.
3. Is NCARB the 'pain' that I have heard? Are they going to be extra-bureaucratic and nit-picky about Using their (badly done) forms? In other words, will they be extra-cantankerous because I didn't start submitting right out of school?
-Dealing with NCARB is a pain. Although lately, I will say that they have been better, or maybe I have just found my way around their system a little better. In my experience, you have long telephone waits, brief discussions with the phone operators, and are left feeling unsatisfied with the answers that they provide. Each time you talk with someone on the phone, get their NAME (in writing) along with the date you spoke to them and the basic stuff they said. That way you have some way of holding them accountable. I have also tried emailing them my question(s), and the turn around time is ridiculous. I mean like probably 2 weeks before I got anything back (and even then my question wasn't answered to my liking). I don't think the forms are so bad, if you have your hours, just divide them by 8 to get your units and write them in the form. And yes, I would use THEIR forms, not your own, because if they decide that your forms aren't to their liking you won't hear about it until YOU contact them (weeks later) and ask them what is going on, only for them to tell you "oh sorry, you submitted everything on the incorrect form, so you will have to resubmit your hours". So yes, I would use their forms. If you are still in contact with your former supervisors, you might try and log your hours using their new E-EVR system (or something like that) that allows you to submit everything over the internet, and they send an email to your supervisor asking if what you submitted is true, and then your supervisor can just approve it like that. It is supposedly much faster, although I haven't used it. What I do know, is that when I submit my hours by snail mail, it usually takes at least a month to a month and a half before my record shows that I have actually completed my most recent report. I really wouldn't worry too much about submitting all your hours at once, I know that people do it and it works for them. I would get on this sooner rather than later seeing that everything is changing and you won't be able to submit all your hours in the (near) future.
Hope that is of some help.
There's some encouraging info emerging - thanks!
take the test in arizona or missouri and bypass idp altogether.
AZ'a adopted it...uggghh...
..but just looked at Missouri. Looks like they're not adopting until 2012 & might not require a Masters. That may work, thanks Vado.
I'm starting the process at the moment. Only trying to go back about 4 or 5 years of experience. Its tough getting in contact with past employers as I worked over seas for a while. The NCARB websites are TERRIBLE!!!!
when does the 6 month rule kick in? i haven't opened my file yet.
oh, so if one takes the exam in, say Missouri, can they be transferred to your own state? Or do you remain licensed only in Missouri?
dot,
the '6 Month rule' starts for anyone initiating an NCARB Record
AFTER 1 JULY 2009.
That motivated me to part w/ $285
I think NCARB's going to getting a lot of people submitting backlogs of experience in the next couple months.
btw - I had no problem when I submitted about 5 years of work several years ago... they didn't count any jobs that were less than 6 months, though... and they were real sticklers about it... I had a little over 5 months experience working for a GC who happened to be a licensed architect, and they wouldn't take it, so I had to spend another 2 years getting CA experience.
I was glad when I started it because I realized where the gaps were in what experience I should have been getting up to that point.
thanks archlab
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