Courtesy photoWichita State University graduate Alina Keow is one of 137 people who earned the 2019 Elijah Watt Sells Award, which recognizes outstanding accomplishment on the CPA Exam.
Nearly 75,000 individuals sat for the CPA Exam in 2019 with 137 candidates meeting the criteria to receive the Elijah Watt Sells Award.
Keow graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2018 with a bachelor of business administration with dual majors in accounting and information technology & management information systems, and a minor in economics.
She works for Ernst & Young in Oklahoma City.
“My coworkers were very supportive while I was taking the exams, and they were excited to hear the news,” she said. “The firm released an announcement of all the EWS award winners at EY, and a lot of congratulatory messages poured in because of that.”
Keow is the third Wichita State School of Accountancy graduate to win the award in recent years. She joins Amber (Loewen) Turner (2015) and Isaiah Massey (2009).
Keow’s family connection to Wichita State is strong (two members of her family graduated from the university), so she applied only to WSU and studied in the W. Frank Barton School of Business.
“I was attracted to the versatility of an accounting degree, as well as the intellectual challenge that comes with the academic material,” Keow said. “This major also gives access to a wide array of jobs and opportunities for career advancements in different areas of business.”
To qualify for the award, CPA candidates must obtain a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination, pass all four sections on their first attempt and have completed testing in 2019.
The Elijah Watt Sells Award program was established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in 1923 to recognize outstanding performance on the CPA Exam. Sells, one of the first CPAs in the U.S., was active in the establishment of the AICPA and played a key role advancing professional education within the profession.
