Courses
Non-Core Courses
This includes five general business courses, specifically:
- Introductory Financial Accounting (IFA)
- Introductory Management Accounting (IMA)
- Economics (ECO)
- Statistics (STA)
- Business Law (BUL)
The non-core preparatory courses are delivered by CPA Atlantic School in a self-study format with open enrollment. Students are able to register any day of the year as these courses do not have specific start dates.
Students have up to 12 months from their start date to complete the course-end exam. They can select any of the four examination dates following their date of enrollment to best meet their needs and schedules. At the time of their initial registration, students will see the option to select from the next few available exam dates. Students who require a later exam date can contact our Registrations team for assistance enrolling. Exam registration deadlines require that students enroll for an exam no later than 6 weeks prior to the exam date, and must select their chosen exam at the time of their initial registration.
Each course includes:
- Online course materials
- Practice problems and quizzes
The time commitment for the non-core courses is dependent on how quickly it takes to complete the course. For example, students electing to complete their course within 12 weeks can expect to spend five to 10 hours per week, depending on their prior knowledge. However, students who are less familiar with the course concepts or who want to accelerate their course and take less than 12 weeks to complete the course could spend upward of 15 to 20 hours or more.
The course grade will be based 100% on the final exam. A passing mark is 50%.
Please note that all non-core courses are held online.
Core Courses
This includes nine, higher-level business and accounting courses, specifically:
- Intermediate Financial Reporting 1 (IF1)
- Intermediate Financial Reporting 2 (IF2)
- Advanced Financial Reporting (AFR)
- Corporate Finance (COF)
- Audit and Assurance (AUA)
- Taxation (TAX)
- Intermediate Management Accounting (MAA)
- Performance Management (PMA)
- Information Technology (ITE)
The core preparatory courses are delivered by CPA Atlantic School. Note that the modality and overall features of core courses transitioned during 2021 and 2022 (from “Standard Modality” to “Adaptive-Learning Modality”).
In both modality types, courses are offered four times per year, over a seven-week semester, with 6 weeks of course material, and culminate in a set-date final exam in the seventh week. The required study time per week is an estimated 15 to 20 hours. Students are permitted to select an exam in a later semester at the time of their initial registration, but are still required to complete their coursework over the 6-week semester. Exams must be written within one year of the initial course start date. At the time of their initial registration, students will see the option to select from the next few available exam dates. Students who require a later exam date can contact our Registrations team for assistance enrolling.
Adaptive Learning
The redesigned CPA preparatory courses are designed to allow students to work through course concepts in an effective and efficient manner. The courses incorporate technology solutions that adapt course content to meet unique learner needs. Each redesigned course contains six units.
- Interact with the CPA Canada Learning Library Smartbooks:
- Adaptive reviews -20%
- Unit assessments and course survey – 40%
- Practice problems – 20%
- Task-based simulations – 20%
- Marking is based on final exam (100%) noting that students must achieve a minimum of 75 percent on coursework activities within six weeks to be eligible to write the exam
- Students require a minimum of 60 per cent on the final exam
Orientation Webinar
To help you begin your journey on the CPA path, CPA Atlantic School of Business holds a mandatory orientation webinar for all students who are enrolled in one of the 14 CPA preparatory modules (CPA PREP). This introductory webinar is intended to be watched prior to the start of your first CPA PREP module. It is designed to familiarize you with CPA PREP, provide basic training on important tools that will be crucial to success in your CPA studies, and set expectations. At the end of the webinar, you can ask questions directly to the CPA Atlantic School staff. Please view the CPA Preparatory Course Schedules to see the date of the orientation webinar for each semester.