Waiting for Results

Took the CISSP exam on March 27th and waiting to find out if I passed. I know it may be up to 6 weeks, so I shouldn't think too much about it. Anyone else waiting to hear their results?

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browndog

Took it March 13, 2010 and still waiting.

blubeamr

I also took it on 13 March.. still waiting.. and I might add waiting this long is a bit ridiculous.

emu

That stinks. Took mine on march 20th and really hoping it would be 4 weeks instead of six. I need to stop hitting the mail sync button

LeifAlire

I took it March 20th in Portland and called ISC today and they said those exams haven't been graded yet ..WTF?!?!?!?!? And it will be 6 weeks min before results are released.

emu

Ohhhhhhhhh i hope you are just messing with me! I work for a medium sized university and operations owns one scantron machine for the entire university. The average turn around time is 3 hours! I know, no need to get frazzled, but really it doesn't take long. I just don't don't get it.

BigPerm

I took it on 3/15 too... at least next week I dont have to hear wait 4-6 weeks.

azjag

Somethings to bear in mind. In the month of May 2010 there are 83 locations that are offering this test. I figure that there are probably between 30-50 candidates at each. I have no way of knowing this is a guess. So lets say there are 40 candidates at each of the 83 locations. Hypothetically ISC2 has 3320 people take one of their tests in the month of May. The test was offered in 32 countries including the US. If you have taken any of the ISC2 exams you know that you had to enter 3 different pieces of info on the scan-tron. The book number, book form and one other number that I cannot remember. So you have a possibility of 9 different answer sheets for any given test in 32 different languages (providing that people only took the exam in their native language and not taking the English version in Spain or Germany) covering 7 exams (9 if you include associate of ISC2 exams). And that is just the hypothetical grading scenario for any of the exams. We also don't know what is required to send the tests to the location for grading. What is required of the proctor to certify the test as valid. What is required to mail the test to the grading center. What is required of the grading center to verify nothing happened to the test while it was en-route. There has to be a complex set of checks and balances to make sure the test wasn't compromised. Has anybody ever been informed they would have to retest because the test was compromised?

I have no idea how much scantron grading hardware has changed but I remember loading the answer sheet then auto-feeding the test to be graded. You could do 50 tests a minute but that was in the early 90's.

Anybody remember taking the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) test in grade school?

aethereos

azjag wrote: »

I have no idea how much scantron grading hardware has changed but I remember loading the answer sheet then auto-feeding the test to be graded. You could do 50 tests a minute but that was in the early 90's.

There's no way to know if any, some, all or none of the above manual steps apply to ISC2's method of grading the scantrons. Everyone knows there is more work involved in grading bubbled tests but perhaps ISC2 could sort them by batch or group and at the very least post this progress information on people's profile. Like they could stick a barcode to one batch and let us know it got delivered to Florida.

By the same token, we could assume their staffs went on vacation this month, or maybe they had corporate downsizing? Who knows?

The point here is the candidates are antsy, and ISC2 is not helping very much.

azjag

aethereos wrote: »

There's no way to know if any, some, all or none of the above manual steps apply to ISC2's method of grading the scantrons. Everyone knows there is more work involved in grading bubbled tests but perhaps ISC2 could sort them by batch or group and at the very least post this progress information on people's profile. Like they could stick a barcode to one batch and let us know it got delivered to Florida.

By the same token, we could assume their staffs went on vacation this month, or maybe they had corporate downsizing? Who knows?

The point here is the candidates are antsy, and ISC2 is not helping very much.

Which is why I included the following words in my previous post. Guess and Hypothetical scenario. Everybody that has taken an exam from ISC2 was told prior to opening the test book that the results will take 4-6 weeks. My proctor added the statement "If you don't hear anything by week 5, Check your spam folder then call"

My intent with the last post was to give some insight to what may be contributing factors for the delay. With ISC2's chosen format and how they proctor their exams the method of grading is limited. Hand graded and input by hand (very unlikely) or graded by machine and scanned into the system are the only ways I can think of. The completed exams have to get to the grading machine somehow.

I actually enjoyed the format and found I was not as stressed as I was with normal Computer Proctored Exams. I don't mind the wait, I'm focused on the CWNA exam now and hope to be done by June, before I start my Masters program in July.

emu

After complaining i just got the e-mail and passed!

azjag

Congrats on the pass. What's next for you?

emu

Thanks! I'm taking a year off, butI was thinking ITIL. Think it's worth it?

browndog

Check your e-mail - received my results at 0806 EDT - PASSED!

laidbackfreak

congrats guys

mikej412

emu wrote: »

passed!

browndog wrote: »

PASSED!

Congratulations to both of you!!

JDMurray

I believe that the (ISC)2 does not actually grade the exams themselves, but instead has all of their exam services outsourced to another company. If this is the case, their exams are in a queue with the exams of the hundreds (thousands?) of other customers of that same service. That would certainly be a good reason for a 4-6 week processing delay.

And remember, the (ISC)2 is well aware of the dissatisfaction that this delay causes in their candidates. This is why the (ISC)2 is experimenting with computer-based exams right now.

VoxOrion

I'd prefer that they keep the standards high, avoid computer exams, but work with a better outsourcer

azjag

VoxOrion wrote: »

I'd prefer that they keep the standards high, avoid computer exams, but work with a better outsourcer

I second this approach.

SuperRB

And...like everyone else...hoping that I'm one of the lucky ones and get my results quickly.

Microwaves try my patience so this is going to be a challenge. I don't feel confident, but neither do I feel "un" confident. I guess I'm just feeling neutral about my chances of passing.

And so, the wait begins.

dynamik

Congratulations to those that passed!

SuperRB wrote: »

Microwaves try my patience so this is going to be a challenge. I don't feel confident, but neither do I feel "un" confident. I guess I'm just feeling neutral about my chances of passing.

Have you had the nightmares yet? Waking up in a cold sweat because your score came back as a zero because you got the wrong booklet, or falling asleep while retaking the exam and waking up with 30 minutes remaining and 200+ questions left to answer?

They get progressively worse. The next Friday the 13th could use the (ISC)2 wait as a plot line.

Oh, and welcome to the forums

mikej412

SuperRB wrote: »

And so, the wait begins.

I hear that

helps the time go faster -- if you don't have to worry too much about your job performance (or driving) between now and getting your result

Hope you get Good News!!

SuperRB

dynamik wrote: »

Congratulations to those that passed!

Have you had the nightmares yet? Waking up in a cold sweat because your score came back as a zero because you got the wrong booklet, or falling asleep while retaking the exam and waking up with 30 minutes remaining and 200+ questions left to answer?

They get progressively worse. The next Friday the 13th could use the (ISC)2 wait as a plot line.

Oh, and welcome to the forums

The nightmare was almost REAL. I lost track of time and almost didn't have enough time to bubble in all my answers. Talk about a furious pencil pusher....I was bubbling like mad. Made it with five minutes to spare

I feel so guilty for not studying all day today. This is the first day in 6 weeks that I haven't spent at least 3 hours with a CISSP book in my face !

SuperRB

mikej412 wrote: »

I hear that helps the time go faster -- if you don't have to worry too much about your job performance (or driving) between now and getting your result

Hope you get Good News!!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm going to drown my brain with more knowledge instead. Training this week, presenting in two weeks, articles to write, blogs to post and new goals to set. Yup...I'm definitely a type A which is why I have no patience with microwaves...I mean...who has 3 minutes to wait on a meal? Not me !

dynamik

SuperRB wrote: »

The nightmare was almost REAL. I lost track of time and almost didn't have enough time to bubble in all my answers. Talk about a furious pencil pusher....I was bubbling like mad. Made it with five minutes to spare

Yea, I ticked the bubble and then filled them all in at the end. Someone informed me that that was a terrible strategy afterwords. That was unnecessary since the wicked hand cramp sent the signal loud and clear. I guess some people have run out of time using that method and have consequently failed. I guess the better-safe-than-sorry approach is to fill-in as you go.

SuperRB wrote: »

I feel so guilty for not studying all day today. This is the first day in 6 weeks that I haven't spent at least 3 hours with a CISSP book in my face !

I put the CISSP material behind me, but started books on C, Ruby, and Wireshark

SuperRB wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm going to drown my brain with more knowledge instead.!

You can do both. It just takes a little practice

SuperRB wrote: »

Training this week, presenting in two weeks, articles to write, blogs to post and new goals to set.

Enough teasing, what's the URL? And what's up next? Add your certs to your profile. What's your background? Where do you want to go? We should stop hijacking this thread, but you should create your own "introduction" thread.

SuperRB wrote: »

Yup...I'm definitely a type A which is why I have no patience with microwaves...I mean...who has 3 minutes to wait on a meal? Not me !

Tell me about it. Are we in the 50s? We should have psychic microwaves that have our food ready for us as soon as we enter the door.

mlev

I got my email Friday - I passed!

Congratulations to all the other March candidates who have passed!

Now on to the endorsement: My former boss is a CISSP. I'm meeting with him on Wednesday. I worked directly for him for four years, so he knows my work very well.

But I'm not certain about some parts of this process:

1. How detailed does the CV/resume that I submit need to be? How extensively should the job duties be described? (When I got my CBCP - Certified Business Continuity Professional - from DRI, I had to practically write a book! The minimum was 2,000 words.)

2. Who submits the endorsement form and CV/resume? Do I send it to ISC2 or does my Endorser?

If you have insight into this... thank you for sharing.

SuperRB

Someone (who shall remain nameless?) suggested that I introduce myself.

Hi. I am just like the folks on this thread who took the test and are attempting to deal with the ambiguity of not knowing if that cat in the box is half dead or half alive. I hope my cat is alive. I hope your cat is alive. I hope all cats everywhere are alive (except zombie cats, of course). Oh...and the cat is a metaphor for the CISSP exam results, in case you didn't know that.

So, that's who I am.

JDMurray

Your resume should emphasize the InfoSec experience you have in the CISSP CBK domains. And either you or your endorser can send in your paperwork to (ISC)2. The impostand thing is that the forms are properly filled out and signed.

SuperRB wrote: »

Someone (who shall remain nameless?) suggested that I introduce myself.

Way to hijack a thread.

mlev

Thank you for the quick response, JD. I think I'm on the right track. I've held two positions since 2006. For each, I'm listing the job duties as bulletpoints under a domain, like so:

Domain: Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning

· Develop Business Continuity Plans, including performing a Business Impact Analysis and developing Recovery Strategies for government and educational organizations, such as <college> and <city govt>. Conduct BIA through interviews with key personnel; report findings to management. Provide options for recovery strategies with recommendations based on business impact findings. Include program for continual development of business continuity plans, training, and testing.

I'm not including my 2005 job, which was for a company that went under due to mismanagement of funds. I can't find my former boss. But since I have the CISA, I'm hoping the four years of documented work experience will suffice.

JDMurray

You do not need to actually identify the specific domains on your resume, but it's OK to do so. The (ISC)2 (and probably your endorser) will not be calling any of your old bosses, so put down all the work experience you have regardless if your former companies exist or not. And having the CISA will add a considerable amount of credibility towards your successful vetting by the (ISC)2.

jimbalaya

emu wrote: »

After complaining i just got the e-mail and passed!

Guess i'll try your approach. Took the test on 04/02 and still no results! Now i'll go check my email...