Upcoming IDP Changes - June 29, 2016
During its September 2014 meeting, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) Board of Directors approved a proposal to streamline and overhaul the Intern Development Program (IDP) over a two-year period. IDP streamlining was implemented on July 1, 2015, which reduced the required hours for completion of IDP from 5,600 to 3,740. The upcoming IDP overhaul aligns content areas with the divisions of the new version of the Architect Registration Examination, ARE 5.0, which is planned for release in late 2016.
Aligning IDP with Examination
The final phase of the two-phase process for reinventing IDP will be to align the current experience areas with the results from NCARB’s 2012 Practice Analysis of Architecture. The approved change structures the current four IDP experience categories and 17 experience areas into six broad practice-based experience categories. The six categories would directly correlate with the practice-based areas of architecture that serve as the foundation for the six divisions of ARE 5.0. This would align IDP with the current realities and challenges of contemporary architectural practice.
NCARB released an IDP Calculator for candidates to utilize and explore how their IDP hours will merge to the new areas. The Board will continue to review the NCARB Record upon receipt and notify a candidate when they are eligible for the California Supplemental Examination. Candidates should experience a greater ease of reporting experience hours into six broad practice-based areas.
IDP Renaming
On January 27, 2016, NCARB announced that, as part of an industry-wide push to retire the term "intern," IDP will be renamed the Architectural Experience Program (AXP). This decision was enacted by NCARB’s Board of Directors and is the result of over a year of research and outreach by various NCARB committees, as well as feedback from state licensing boards, industry leaders, and emerging professionals.