Option 1 means you opt in through the credential maintenance program rather than by passing a specialty test. You will be a LEED AP with specialty as long as you fulfill the maintenance requirements outlined in the canidate guide.

I wrote in asking if on-demand classes counted as self-study or continuing education and received the following response:

“Dear William,

Thank you for contacting the Green Building Certification Institute.

Any course that is ERB approved would be considered professional development/continuing education.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us via the GBCI contact page.

Regards,

Shabresha Utley
Customer Care Representative
Green Building Certification Institute
2101 L Street NW, Suite 650
Washington, DC 20037
800-795-1746 (phone)
202 828-5110 (fax)
http://www.gbci.org/contactus“

I hadn’t noticed that the on-demand courses might not count as continuing education until I just re-read the CMP guide. I am going to write to GBCI to clarify if courses have to be live to count as continuing education or if all courses in the USGBC catalogue count no matter the format. Luckily there is no limit on self-study hours that I can see so it shouldn’t matter either way but will be good to clarify.

Bill

I just opted in back in December and I was given two years from that point to complete the CMP requirements.

Bill

I saw your posts above and thought I’d give my take. I believe any course listed in the USGBC Course Catalog can count towards CE hours (although any on-demand web classes are counted in the Self Study category). By definition, an EBR reviews and approves courses so I think we can conclude that USGBC approves any course that is in their catalog.

During the first 2-yr CMP period for Legecy LEED APs, the 6 LEED-specific credits must relate directly to the specialty you are trying to achieve. You can sort by specialty in the USGBC course catalog. In my case (BD+C) all the currently offered classes cost money, but in future years you should be able to count anything LEED related at all.

Thoughts?

https://www.usgbc.org/CourseCatalog/CourseCatalog.aspx

Do I have it right that the only ERB approved courses an existing LEED AP can take to opt in to LEED V3 are USGBC courses? I recently was sent the credentialing maintenance reminder with link to the handbook. I then visited the GBCI website to see the approved ERB’s and all it has is a link to the USGBC courses which are all fairly pricey.

So basically it looks like you’ll have to spend hundreds if not thousands every two years to take USGBC courses since no other green building related courses are approved. Of course you can do other things to achieve hours like volunteering, working on green projects, etc. but I’m not an architect so a good portion would still have to rely on on-line education. I thought you would be able to take some of the free green courses available on-line from other providers but it doesn’t look like that will be an option.

Best regards,
Harrison Quigley

Well ofcourse I didn’t create a new account for the speciality exam, why should I opt not to use the current one which has me as a legacy LEED AP ?

All I wanted is to prepare for furthermore specialty (O+M) in addition to the BD+C one that is anticipated already, so that we get to do some O+M for the existing buildings we have here in Jordan as more like LEED AP specialists.

I think the bottom line is that: as the CMP track is not ready yet, legacy LEED APs cannot get past the eligibility page when seeking more specialty (LEED v3.0 part 2 ) exams unless LEED project experience is available (which isn’t in my case yet).

Furthermore, as we are trying to seek the most appropriate orientation towards the 400 level (LEED AP Fellow) credential, it seems that LEED PROJECT EXPERIENCE will be MORE VITAL to get closer to such elite credential than having more specialties (O+M, Homes , ND & ID+C) in addition to BD+C for the new construction example which is the most popular for legacy LEED APs worldwide…

So that’s all and I’d love to know what you think ….what you have found out while trying to register for a LEED v3.0 for Homes exam , for instance!

Thanks man
JMT

http://www.gbci.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=110

When you registered for your O+M exam, did you create a new account name, or use your old one?

Aditionally, you do know that you are not required to take an exam to become a LEED AP under LEED v3. You could opt-in to LEED v3 by fulfilling credentialing maintenance program requirements, which isn’t quite ready for us LEED APs yet.

Let me know if you have anymore questions. I’ll look into seeing about the eligibility requirement if you would like to take the exam instead.

I’m a legacy LEED AP but when I try to register for the LEED AP O+M speciality exam, there’s no path for legacy LEED APs to pass by the eligiblity (Project experience) page ! How can existing LEED APs not require eligibility for the speciality exams ?

I do understand what you are saying about the titles.

Here are the tracked changes for New Construction.

As I understand, LEED BD+C is for New Construction, Major Renovations for Schools & Core n Shell, right? Then what happens when they(USGBC) come up with LEED for Healthcare, Hospitality, Shopping Malls, Airports, Manufacturing, Marine Harbours, etc..etc…do we have to take exams/CMP for all of them? I am venting out my frustration, so that if enough LEGACY APs(including yourself Pat) write to USGBC, maybe they will start thinking in a more SANER way!! Right now they seem to have monopolized the whole Green thing, and they are indeed a law unto themselves!!

Your site is great – it was the most helpful item that I used in preparing for the LEED AP Exam. Thank you.

With regards to the above, LEED AP Specialty w/ and/or w/o the exam. Are there any advantages to taking the exam? It does not seem to make much sense as to why anyone would want to take another test.