• Request sample applications - know someone who is already certified? Ask them if you can review their proposal.

• The fillable PDF does NOT have spell-check! They're trying to get that function incorporated but are dealing with compatibility issues.

• All in semester units, there's a "conversion" slide coming up.

• Ecological Society of America will certify anyone with a PhD.

• Online courses, practical trainings, and community college can help fill in gaps.

In Chat Questions and Answers

• For wildlife management would working for watershed partnership and invasive species committee count for this section? Worked on Coqui crew and field associate for partnership

  • • Maybe a bit more in "discussion" phase, but we typically require one COURSE and then we can fill in extra hours with work experience. We usually credit no more than 3 credit hours in any category from work experience, so you do need 9 hours of coursework (a few exceptions are possible)

• Can internship credits count towards credit for sections or independent research projects?

  • • Usually. When we open to general Q&A please ask again, ideally providing a bit more detail. Usually NOT more than three units in any section, and not in Ecology or Statistics

• Is it required that the courses be taken at a university? I'm already done with my masters and I'm not going back to school, but would I be able to take any missing courses at a CC?

  • • Yes, Community college is accepted! So is on line training through (for example) American Public University and several other virtual learning opportunities. We do usually look for one course in each category at a "brick and mortar" institution

• Does “elementary statistics” course not count for the statistics portion? 4 units

  • • It should count, if it's at a college or university. Make sure the course description explains the content

• Do you recommend folks try to do AWB first before CWB?

  • • That really depends. If you've got 5 years of solid WM experience, go for CWB from the start, but it's an additional 15-20 pages!

• I think I'd have to go through the exercise of filling out the credits and parsing experience to see if that would work - I have 5 years if technician jobs would count

  • • "Technician" is always tricky. We want to credit the "decision maker," not the "worker bee." If you crunch the data and make decisions, and write the reports and management recommendations, that's more "professional." Read the description at the start of the "Work Experience" section

• What are you looking for on a college transcript if you passed an AP exam and didn't take a writing class in college? My college transcripts don't show the AP exam but they show that I was exempt from college English. The high school transcripts show that I was enrolled in honors AP English.

  • This might be a case where we normally do not require high school transcripts but it might be helpful to have that.