Last week, I got my results for Site Planning and Design and Schematic Design. They came together in one envelope and were as I suspected, pass and fail respectively. So far I’m happy. Not happy that I failed, but happy that I got my results. Results, good or bad, are a sign of progress.
Fail letters suck. There is no other better description. In particular, this fail letter fails (see the pun) to accurately explain my deficiency. The letter doesn’t tell me what I did wrong. My letter only says I had major deficiencies in the interior layout vignette.
The letter doesn’t even tell me that well. The letter has a typo and says “the is” where it should say “this”. It says if you see an asterisk you have major deficiencies. It also says if you see an asterisk you have minor deficiencies. Then under the words Interior Layout, it says “*major deficiencies”. Why then say, “where there is an asterisk”? (I guess if you have major deficiencies you also should have minor deficiencies? Not clear people.)
This is really a horrible letter. NCARB, Prometric and the NY state board can improve upon this letter. For all of the effort of ALL parties put into creating, taking and administering the exam, a fail letter is a disappointment on every single level. Communicating fail results to ARE candidates requires more information than a pass letter and any improvements that can be made to these letters will encourage candidates to keep taking the exam and pursuing licensure. Had my reasons for failure not been so clear to me on taking the Schematic Design exam, I would have had an even harder time accepting this very limited correspondence.
PPI
Sketchbook Project