BOC Exam Pass Rate Analysis
BOC Exam Pass Rate: The Complete Breakdown (2026)
The latest data on Board of Certification (BOC) exam pass rates for athletic trainers, taken directly from the BOC’s annual exam report: first-time, retake, and all-attempt pass rates for the 2024-25 exam year, the seven-year trend, how CAATE reports program-level results, retake rules, fees, and what the numbers mean for your preparation. Every figure on this page is sourced from the BOC exam report and the BOC certification requirements.
The Headline Numbers
What the BOC Data Actually Says
| Exam year | First-time candidates | First-time pass rate | Retake pass rate | All-attempt pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 3,974 | 77.8% | 39.8% | 66.8% |
| 2019-20 | 3,913 | 77.6% | 39.1% | 66.3% |
| 2020-21 | 3,035 | 61.6% | 30.0% | 49.4% |
| 2021-22 | 2,625 | 77.2% | 40.9% | 64.0% |
| 2022-23 | 2,427 | 74.1% | 36.2% | 60.8% |
| 2023-24 | 2,285 | 68.7% | 29.1% | 52.4% |
| 2024-25 | 2,256 | 74.6% | 29.3% | 56.2% |
First Attempt vs Retake
Three Out of Four Pass the Exam the First Time. Fewer Than One in Three Pass the Retake.
The BOC exam has the widest first-time to retake gap of any major healthcare board exam. Every point of preparation before the first window is worth several after it.
“Programs must establish benchmarks set at or above a 70% overall pass rate 3 year-aggregate.”
CAATE Standard 4 annotation, 2020 Standards as revised August 2023
The Board of Certification for the athletic trainer reports three pass rates each year, and they tell three different stories. The first-time rate (74.6%) is the number that answers the question most candidates are asking: what are my odds on the day I sit? The retake rate (29.3%) is the number that explains why the first attempt matters so much. And the all-attempt rate (56.2%) is the blend, pulled down because retakers made up 40 percent of everyone who tested. None of these is the number your program advertises. Programs and CAATE report the share of a graduating cohort that eventually passes, counted per student rather than per attempt, which runs higher than any of the three BOC figures.
The gap between 74.6 and 29.3 is the argument for first-attempt preparation, for everyone entering the athletic training profession. A failed first attempt costs the $375 exam fee again, a two-to-three-month wait for the next window, a delayed start to a job that usually requires the ATC credential, and a second attempt that succeeds less than a third of the time. Our BOC exam study guide and study plan customizer are built around readiness before registration, not around a window on the calendar.
The Trend
Seven Years of BOC Exam Pass Rates
Three things stand out in seven years of BOC data. The first-time rate has lived in a 74 to 78 percent band except for two dips: 61.6% in 2020-21, the pandemic year, and 68.7% in 2023-24, the first full year of the Practice Analysis, 8th Edition. Both recovered within a year. The retake rate has fallen from around 40 percent before 2023 to 29 percent after, which suggests the newer scenario-heavy exam is harder to pass by simply sitting again. And the candidate pool has shrunk by more than 40 percent as CAATE moved the profession from bachelor’s to master’s entry, which means the candidates who remain are, on average, further along in their training than the 2018 cohort was, and the pass rate has not risen to match.
For a candidate, the practical reading is this: the exam is passable on the first attempt for three out of four well-prepared graduates, the blueprint rewards clinical decision-making over recall, and the retake path is a poor fallback. Treat the 74.6 percent as a benchmark for a prepared candidate, not a forecast for every candidate.
Program Variation
Athletic Training Program Pass Rates Vary More Than You Think
CAATE publishes a three-year aggregate for every accredited program and requires each program to benchmark at or above 70 percent. The spread between programs is wide, and most published rates are overall rates, not first-time rates.
Program pass rates vary far more than the national average suggests, and the way they are reported has changed twice in three years. Until 2022 CAATE enforced a bright-line standard: a three-year aggregate first-time pass rate of at least 70 percent, with programs below it placed on probation. CAATE vacated that standard in March 2022. Under the 2023 revision of Standard 4, effective July 2024, programs instead set their own benchmark at or above a 70 percent overall three-year rate and must analyze and act on any shortfall. And since March 2024, CAATE displays only the three-year aggregate for each program, not individual years, to protect the anonymity of students in small cohorts.
| Row | What it counts | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Number of students graduating from program who took examination | Graduates in the cohort who sat for the BOC exam at least once | Small cohorts swing the percentages; 12 test-takers means one failure is 8 points |
| Number of students who passed the examination on the first attempt | Graduates who passed on their first sitting | The number that matches the BOC first-time rate |
| Percentage of students who passed the examination on the first attempt | First-time passers divided by test-takers | Compare with the 74.6% national first-time rate |
| Percentage of students who passed the examination regardless of the number of attempts | Everyone who eventually passed divided by test-takers | The overall rate CAATE benchmarks at 70 percent; always higher than first-time |
| Graduation rate | Share of the entering class that finished the program | Read next to the pass rate: a program that filters before the exam inflates its pass rate |
Three cautions when you read program numbers. Most published rates are overall rates, which count a graduate who passed on the third attempt the same as one who passed on the first; a program at 90 percent overall may be near the national average on first attempts. Athletic training cohorts are small, often 10 to 25 students, so a single failure moves a program’s annual rate by four to ten points, which is exactly why CAATE moved to three-year aggregates. And a high pass rate next to a low graduation rate is a program that filters before the exam, not one that prepares for it.
For current athletic training students, the program rate sets expectations, not outcomes. Graduates from programs well under the national average pass on the first attempt every window with the right preparation, and graduates from top programs fail when they assume the program carries them. The variable is whether your study plan matches your actual gaps by domain, from risk reduction, wellness and health literacy through therapeutic intervention, which is what a week-by-week BOC exam study plan built from a diagnostic does.
Retake Rules
What Happens After a Failed Attempt
Per the BOC certification requirements. The rules are permissive; the odds are not.
The Passing Standard
How the BOC Sets the Cut Score
The pass rate is not a grading curve. The Board of Certification for the athletic trainer sets a passing standard through a formal standard-setting study, in which a panel of certified athletic trainers judges the items against entry-level competence; the result is a cut score that is fixed to the 500 scaled score. Each new exam form is equated to that standard using the Rasch model, a one-parameter item response model, so the scaled score of 500 represents the same level of ability whether a form runs slightly harder or easier. The annual BOC exam report publishes the reliabilities of each form alongside the pass rates, and reliabilities for the BOC exam sit in the range expected of a National Commission for Certifying Agencies accredited certification exam. In practical terms: the passing standard does not move with the candidate pool, and a hard window does not lower the cut score.
Two consequences for candidates. First, a scaled score is not a percentage: there is no fixed number of correct answers that equals 500, which is why third-party practice exams can only estimate readiness and the BOC Self-Assessment Exam is the only calibrated check. Second, score reporting for a failed attempt includes domain-level feedback against that fixed standard, so the report tells you where you fell short of entry-level competence, not merely where you ranked.
What It Means for You
How to Use the Pass Rate Data in Your Preparation
Get Started
Be in the 74.6 Percent
FAQ
BOC Exam Pass Rate: Common Questions
Per the BOC 2024-25 exam report, 74.6% of first-time candidates passed the Board of Certification (BOC) exam in the 2024-25 exam year (2,256 first-time candidates), 29.3% of retakers passed (1,535 retake candidates), and the all-attempt pass rate across 3,791 candidates was 56.2%. The first-time rate rose from 68.7% in 2023-24.
The first-time rate counts only candidates sitting the exam for the first time. The all-attempt rate counts every candidate who tested in the year, including retakers, who pass at well under half the first-time rate. Because retakers make up about 40 percent of candidates in a typical year, the all-attempt rate (56.2%) sits far below the first-time rate (74.6%). Programs and the CAATE report a third number, the share of a graduating cohort that eventually passes, which runs higher than either.
Retakers passed at 29.3% in 2024-25, 29.1% in 2023-24, and between 28 and 41 percent in every year the BOC has reported. The candidates who fail once are disproportionately those with the largest content gaps, and many retake in the very next window, two to three months later, without changing how they prepare. A retake that repeats the first study plan tends to repeat the first result; the score report’s domain-level feedback is the starting point for a different plan.
The BOC has not published a cause. The certification exam for athletic trainers changed blueprints that year: the first-time rate fell from 74.1% in 2022-23 to 68.7% in 2023-24, the first full year under the Practice Analysis, 8th Edition blueprint, which took effect in the March/April 2023 window with five reorganized domains, then recovered to 74.6% in 2024-25. The 2020-21 dip to 61.6% coincided with pandemic-disrupted clinical education.
The passing score is a scaled score of 500 on a 200 to 800 scale. It is a fixed passing standard, set by a standard-setting panel of athletic trainers and carried across forms with the Rasch model, so the pass rate in a given window does not raise or lower the cut score. The scaled score is not a percentage correct; the BOC exam report publishes reliabilities and pass rates for each exam year, but not a raw-score equivalent, because it changes by form.
Lower on first attempts than most. The National Athletic Trainers Association does not publish pass rates; the BOC does, and they compare as follows. In 2025, first-time candidates passed the NPTE for physical therapists at 85%, the NBCOT OTR exam at 68%, and the Praxis SLP at roughly 83 to 94 percent depending on how it is counted. The BOC exam’s 74.6% first-time rate sits in the middle of that group, but its 29.3% retake rate is the lowest, which makes first-attempt preparation unusually important for athletic training candidates. See our NPTE pass rate and NBCOT pass rate analyses for those exams.
CAATE publishes every accredited program’s three-year aggregate BOC pass rate on its Program Information and Outcomes page, and accredited programs must link to it from their homepage (CAATE, March 2024). Since 2024 CAATE displays the three-year aggregate only, not individual years, to protect student anonymity. Many programs also post first-time and overall rates on their own websites.
The BOC allows unlimited retakes within one year of the date your results were posted, one attempt per exam window, with a new registration and exam fee each time (BOC certification requirements). Some state regulatory boards set their own limits on attempts for licensure. Our BOC exam format guide covers the full retake rules.