Truth be told, I didn’t know what the Elijah Watts Sells Award was until after I’d already taken two of the four CPA exams. I vaguely remembered hearing about it from another PwC intern. We were interning together during the winter season, January to March. She was top of her class at her university. Let’s call her Diana. It was near the end of the internship, and a few of us interns were loitering in the PwC office. I remember that my friend and I were chatting about how we planned to take the CPA exam over the summer and hoped to finish it on the first try. Diana, very assured of herself and with a smug smile on her face announced, “I plan to ace all of the exams AND win the national award.” Good grief, that girl was a handful. That was the first time that I heard of the Elijah Watts Sells Award.
Hold up, what is the Elijah Watts Sells Award?
It’s a prestigious award given to individuals who 1) obtain a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the CPA Exam after 2) they took all four sections of the CPA Exam for the first time. In 2012 – the year that I won – 39 out of over 92,000 won the award. That’s a rate of 0.04%. And I hear that it’s become even more difficult now.
Some accounting firms give bonuses to the winners. My former employer, PwC, did and still does.
Basically, the Elijah Watts Sells Award makes you super popular at happy hours full of accounting nerds… and solidifies your status as chief accounting nerd for the rest of your life.
Okay, back to the story...
I love winning awards. In high school, I competed in so many activities and won most of the regional and state sport and academic competitions… to the point where one of my high school classmates said, “Why don’t you let someone else win everyone once in a while?” And I thought to myself, “Why would I do that? Why can’t they just be better?” Which – by the way – everyone should think to themselves. Don’t let anyone convince you to dumb yourself down. You will regret it. Anyway, I was busy learning how to work in public accounting and forgot about the award for the time being. That was the spring of my senior year of undergrad.
Then, I went to grad school. I’ll never forget the first day of orientation. A leader of the administration bragged about how smart our class was. He talked about our undergrad grades, GMAT exam scores, among other areas. Then, he proceeded to tell us that because we were so smart, no one in the class would get below a B grade. “Seriously?!” I remember thinking. This was fantastic news. I knew that my masters would be the last year of school I ever attended. While I enjoyed learning, I was ready to make my impact on the world. I took the news that I could never get below a B as a hall pass to stop trying. I simply focused on the classes that I enjoyed and didn’t do much work for the ones I didn’t. And I had a blast in the meantime.
This methodology worked well for a while. Then, in my final quarter at Vanderbilt, I had to take a tax class. Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not enjoy taxes. I can do them, sure, but something about the rigidity of convoluted (and constantly changing) rules drives me nuts. Taking the administration’s suggestion, I opted not to study. I wouldn’t get below a B, so who cared, right? Plus, I was so smart according to the administration guy. Surely, I could get by without trying.
Well, turns out the administration guy was not exactly telling the truth. If you don’t show up regularly to class, do the homework, and study for the exams, professors at Vanderbilt will fail you. I found this out halfway through the final quarter. My professor send a kindly worded email that I was on track to get a F and need to retake the class. I was so close to being done with school forever! And yet, I had to buckle down and study like crazy to avoid flunking. I remember feeling ashamed of myself. I always considered myself a good student who worked hard. This struggle with identity meant that I felt the need to overcompensate. I suddenly started cramming for every class, working harder than I ever did in undergrad or high school. Fortunately, my Vandy professor decided to let me pass.
And then, it came time to take the CPA exam.
Fear of failure is a powerful motivator
After nearly failing that class, I was incredibly paranoid about failing the CPA exam. Like any obsessive planner, I started making lists. I outlined the ways that I would study. I set my schedule for each test and planned the amount of time that I thought I would need to study in between exams. While all of my grad school classmates partied it up the last week of school*, I stayed hunkered down in my apartment, reviewing my Becker prep book.
*To be fair to my classmates, most of them had studied hard during the school year. They were all very smart. In fact, I think that until we took the CPA exam, most of them thought I was a bit daft.
Almost all of my grad school classmates planned to take the exam in one go over the summer. This meant that we took one exam roughly every 2-3 weeks. Now, these are intense exams. Each test lasted 4 hours. Cramming them into one summer was a feat in and of itself. I applaud my classmates who did that. Because frankly, that’s all that I set out to do.
And because I overcompensated, I studied too hard and aced most of the tests. I won the Elijah Watts Sells Award as a result.
How I studied for the CPA exam
If you want to win the Elijah Watts Sells Award, here are my top 5 tips:
- Study the way that works for you. My grad school offered an in-person CPA exam prep class to all of my classmates over the summer. This was included in our tuition cost. Every single one of my classmates attended, except me. I knew that I studied better alone. I gained memorization skills during my high school academic competitions and knew what worked best for me. Much to the chagrin of the head guy from the Vandy masters in accounting program (who was probably convinced that I would fail and ruin Vandy’s track record given my academic history so far), I didn’t go to any of the in-person classes. Now, in-person may work for you. If it does, do that. This tip is not prescribing a method; rather, it’s recommending that you practice self-awareness.
- Focus primarily on the Becker curriculum. There’s a reason so many people use Becker. Some of their prep questions are nearly identical to the exam.
- Pump yourself up the morning of the exam. I looked at myself in my bathroom mirror before leaving and told myself, “You studied hard for this test. You will crush it.”
- Rest, exercise, and eat well. If you drink caffeine, make sure you’re sleeping enough too.
- Remove distractions. At least a few days a week, I would drive to the middle of Percy Warner park and study on a park bench. Why, you ask? Because there was no internet. I turned my phone off, locked it in my car, and by god, I wouldn’t leave that park bench until I’d accomplished my memorization goals.
Winning the Elijah Watts Sells Award
Let’s get back to the story. I worked my ass off to study for the first two exams. I felt most confident about the first exam: audit. I had completed two internships with PwC in their audit group, and I’d always found audit coursework the most sensible. I walked into that test prep center, nervous yet confident. I knew that I’d studied enough. I just knew it in my soul. We had 4 hours to take the exam. When I finished the test in about 75 minutes, I panicked. “Shouldn’t it be harder?” I remember thinking. I’d studied so much and taken so many practice exams that I recognized the questions and answers for all but two questions. In an effort to calm myself down, I retook the entire test. Calmer, I walked out of the exam center after two hours. Then, I sat for the financial accounting and regulations exam. Same story. I finished in about 75 minutes, retook it, and left after a couple of hours.
My classmates and I waited a week in agony wondering if we passed or if we’d have to retake those exams. It was awful. But we couldn’t waste time either. After each of those two tests, I immediately put away those books and got out the ones for law and taxes. Finally, our scores arrived. I remember seeing my scores: 99 for audit and 96 for financial accounting and reporting. I felt so relieved. Then, I immediately started wondering, “How come I didn’t get a 100 on Audit at least?” I started asking my classmates what they got and found out that the highest you can get IS a 99. Go figure. All that aside, one of my classmates suggested that I might actually win the Elijah Watts Sells Award. That was the first time I even allowed myself to think it was a possibility.
My nemesis, tax aka regulation, was up next on the exam list. I was already planning to study like crazy for tax because I almost failed that class. Then, once I found out that I would get paid $25K for that bonus by PwC, I went into studying overdrive. My best time of the day for studying is the morning. Because I wanted to optimize my studying time, I started going to bed at 8:30pm and waking up at 4:30am. I created mnemonic after mnemonic trying to make sense of tax laws. Finally, the day came to take the tax test. I was exhausted, extremely nervous, and ready for it to be over.
And then a similar thing happened. With 4 hours to take the test, I finished in 90 minutes. I retook the test again, and then again. I used up every minute of those 4 hours. Frankly, overthinking probably lost me a few points! The same happened for the business environment and concepts test.
Finally, it was time to find out our scores. I remember being with my family, holding my breath as the computer page refreshed, again and again. Would I be able to pay off my student loans? Going to Vandy was a gamble financially for me. I knew it was more expensive, but I hoped that the name brand would help my career. Finally, my scores loaded. I had done it.
You would think that I’d have jumped for joy or screamed. Instead, I breathed a heavy sigh. I had passed the CPA exam. AND I could pay off some of my student loans. What a relief!
Why does this matter to founders?
Now, you may be wondering, this is a blog about starting a business, right? Why are you talking about some nerdy accounting award? Let me tell you. This Elijah Watts Sells Award opened doors for me in my career that I never would have anticipated. First, I was working in PwC Houston and wanted to move to Austin and work on tech clients. Back in 2012, the Austin office was tiny and transfers were few and far between. Because of the clout I achieved from the Elijah Watts Sells Award, I moved to Austin less than 4 months after requesting the transfer.
Then, when I applied to jobs outside of PwC, I landed a role at a private equity real estate firm. Fortunately for me, 2 of the 3 founders of this firm and the hiring manager were CPAs. I distinctly remember one of the partners telling me in the interview, “Woah. You aced the CPA exam? That took me like 4 times to pass it.” Most people slave away for years in investment banking before getting into private equity. I guarantee you that the Elijah Watts Sells Award landed me that private equity job.
Even today as a startup founder, friends or colleagues will mention it as they introduce me. It adds extra validation of intelligence and hard work beyond the three letters of the CPA at the end of my name.
If you are an accounting major who dreams of starting a business, winning the Elijah Watts Sells Award can propel your career in ways you can’t imagine today. It did for me. Overcompensate in your studying and win it. With enough hard work, strategy, and the right talent, you can do it. And you’ll be glad you did.
As a testament to how small the world is...
Prior to winning the award, I interned with two other winners: Eliza Nesvog and Ning Zhu. What are the odds, right?!
Want more? Subscribe below.
MY COMMITMENT | Never sell or share your data | Provide useful and impactful stories