Two of the most frequent questions to come up in social media groups for therapists involve licensing exams: What is the pass rate for [a specific license exam]? And, What is the passing score? Passing scores and pass rates are both good questions, and it’s easy to confuse them.
Sometimes people ask one when they mean the other. And sometimes people ask the question in a way that could mean either one, like “What’s the passing percentage?” Let’s clarify the difference, and answer both.
Once you register as an Associate MFT, CSW, or PCC with the Board of Behavioral Sciences, you have a year to attempt the California Law and Ethics Exam for your profession. There are basically two schools of thought about when you should take that exam. One of them is wrong.
If you’re in your first year as an associate, you should take the exam right now.
Look, I’m not here to defend the BBS (California’s Board of Behavioral Sciences) or any other licensing board. They’re not your friend. They require deeply flawed exams that even they know don’t work. Their disciplinary guidelines, especially around substance use issues, are unreasonably punitive. They are notoriously unresponsive. There are a lot of problems there. But it’s also true that most complaints about the BBS are based on flat-out falsehoods.
In late 2017, I sat down with my friends at LA-CAMFT for a wide-ranging discussion of issues that impact prelicensed therapists. Advocacy is sort of my jam, so we knew that advocacy would be a big part of the discussion. But we also got to talk about interviews, health insurance, employment, exams, and a lot of other issues relevant to early-career therapists.
For the opening episode of our podcast, we talked about why license exams don’t work, but we should keep them anyway. In this follow-up, we talk with Kim Madsen, the Executive Officer of the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. The BBS licenses marriage and family therapists (LMFTs), clinical social workers (LCSWs), and professional clinical counselors (LPCCs). You may be surprised at what she has to say about the license exam process.