Geneva College offers a $5,000 award to any Accounting graduate who qualifies for the Elijah Watt Sells Award based on outstanding performance on the Uniform CPA Examination administered by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Geneva Award Requirements
Geneva offers the incentive award to students who have taken a minimum of 60 credit hours at Geneva College, including all accounting courses with the exception of ACC 151 and ACC 152, and have received the Sells award. Geneva begins awarding in 2018.
Business professor Dr. Gary Vander Plaats seeded the Geneva award in 2018 with a commitment of $5,000 to each student who qualifies with the purpose of incentivizing outstanding performance of Geneva Accounting program graduates.
Elijah Watt Sells Award Requirements
To qualify for the Elijah Watt Sells Award, the recipient must have “obtained a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination, and passed all four sections of the Examination on their first attempt.” The AICPA contacts test-takers who qualify for the award in the calendar year following the year in which they took the test. The rigorous standard to qualify for the Award was met by just 58 of the more than 100,000 students who took the exam in 2016.
The Sells Award was created by the AICPA in 1923 to recognize outstanding performance on the CPA Examination, which demonstrates that people who earn their certified public accountant’s license have mastered the knowledge and skills needed to safeguard public interest in a changing and complicated business and financial world. The Award is named in honor of the man who founded the first major accounting firm, Haskins & Sells, in 1895. As one of the first certified public accountants in the U.S., Sells play a key role in the forming of the AICPA and advancing professional education within accounting.