PA Board Refusing to Let Me Sit

[brant2000]

A little background: I took and passed the FE exam in 2005 in NY, while I was still in college. Because my college had a trimester schedule, NY never issued me an EIT certificate because I was too many credit hours away from graduating. According to NY, the EIT Certificate is really nothing more than a formality and is not a requirement to sit for the PE.

Now, I am applying to sit for my PE in Pennsylvania, and have been told that I MUST have an EIT with 4 years of subsequent work experience. I have requested the documentation to be sent to NY to have my EIT finally issued, but now Pennsylvania is telling me that I will need to wait ANOTHER 4 years to sit.

I guess I can apply to NY and travel to NY to sit the PE exam and see if Pennsylvania will give me a license under reciprocity, but they told me there's no guarantee the board will agree.

Has anybody ever had a similar experience? Please help!

 

[MA_PE]

If I understand you correctly, you passed the test in 2005 but did not meet all the educational requirements until you completed your degree, So they did not issue you an EIT certificate/number. You completed all the requirements at sometime later (but more than 4 years ago, so say in 2006) and never contacted the NY board to get your certificate issued. Now you need proof of EIT and 4 years experience (subsequent to receiving your EIT) so NY will issue you a certificate but it is dated 2012 and PA statrts the clock on your experience based on the date of the EIT ertificate.

I just checked the PA requirements and they emphasized (bold and underlined) that the experience is after the issuance of the EIT.

I'd petition NY to issue a statement of when you met all the requirements for the EIT and see if they will formally issue the certificate retroactively and date it accordingly.

FWIW, if you look at the PA reciprocity application, it has the same requirements for expereince (4 years after the EIT) so yuo'd be in the same boat. If you need to be licensed in PA, I'd work on NY setting the record straight. Good luck.

 

[adamgram]

I am from PA as well, and I've known other people who have been turned down on the "experience must be obtained after the EIT is issued" rule. However, in their case it was because they had taken the exam less than 4 years before applying for the PE.

If you can get NY to retroactively issue the EIT certificate for the date that you qualified, that would probably be your best bet. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you would be eligible in New Jersey. The way I see it, if you live close enough to another state to potentially work there, a PE in that state is as valuable as an in-state PE. They know you could easily take another job on the other side of the river, so they should be willing to pay you like a PE to keep you.

 

[Peele1]

I agree with the above. Ask the board for your EIT nicely, and if that doesn't work, ask again and again, and if that doesn't work, talk to your school, talk to your representatives, talk to a lawyer. If you passed the exam, they should give it to you.

 

[willsee]

Occupy PA Licensure Board.

 

[ChitownPE]

I just received my PE license from PA based on reciprocity. It took less than two weeks with an up-to-date NCEES Record, application fee of $50 and having been licensed as a PE in IL. The NCEES record saved so much aggravation it was well worth it.

The four year time interval between sitting for the FE and PE only applies if you take the FE and pass it while in school or shortly after graduation. If you have worked 4 or more years in an engineering job that can be documented prior to taking and passing the FE (received your EIT), and then you took the PE after 1 year of receiving your EIT, the four year time interval does not apply. Taking the FE and PE with less than four years of total engineering experience is not something to do if you want to be licensed in other States.

 

[kmjones29]

When I took the EIT exam in New York in 2008, they had education requirements to meet before anyone could even sit for that exam (you had to be in an engineering program and have completed a certain number of credits). Was that not the case in 2005? Then it seems like you may need to take the exam again if they're now trying to say that the first time you took it your results weren't valid.

I am taking the PE exam in New York next week, and when I applied last spring there was no requirement for 4 years of experience after the EIT exam, it was just 4 years of experience and you had to have passed the exam at some point before. I passed the EIT in October of 2008, and was accepted to take the PE exam with only 3.5 years passing since I passed that exam. So if New York will recognize that you passed the EIT already, and you can show 4 years of experience, then I think New York would be likely to accept you.

Anyway, if I were you I would try to take the exam in New York and then get an NCEES record and apply for reciprocity in PA. The last company I worked for was in NY and there was an office in PA, and no one that I know of had a problem getting a PA license when they were already licensed in NY.

 

[ksk1912]

General rule or reciprocity; being licensed in others state means "you passed NCEES-PE exam only" ,you still have to fulfill all requirements of the state that you want to be licensed anyway.