BAS supervision hours — how are people logging and verifying theirs?
I'm working toward the BAS credential and in the middle of my required supervised fieldwork hours. My situation is a bit unusual — I work for a small private practice where my supervisor is a BCBA but not a BAS herself, so I'm not sure all my hours will qualify. The BACB fieldwork documentation requirements are specific and I don't want to log 500 hours and find out a third of them don't count at the application stage.
From what I understand, the BAS supervisory experience requires hours supervising registered behavior technicians or BCaBA-level practitioners, not just direct client work. I've been keeping a Google Sheets log with date, RBT name, supervision activity, and duration, but nobody's reviewed it yet. The BACB guidelines say your supervisor needs to sign off on your hours but it's vague about the format.
I'm also confused about the exam prep timeline. The supervisory content area is a large portion of the exam and I'm struggling with the BACB's specific competency language and task list wording. I've been scoring 66% on practice questions, below the 70% threshold most people aim for going in. About 5 weeks out right now.
5 weeks at 66% is recoverable. Focus on the supervision and management domain — it's weighted heavily and most directly connected to your fieldwork. When you understand why the BACB practices exist, the task list wording starts making more sense.
If your supervisor is a BCBA but not a BAS, that's fine for supervising your BAS experience hours as long as they hold an active BCBA credential and your supervision is structured to address BAS-level competencies. The requirement isn't that your supervisor holds the BAS — it's that the content matches.
The exam task list wording is its own language. I found the Cooper, Heron, and Heward textbook useful for understanding the concepts but the BACB task list itself needs to be memorized as written. The exam tests the specific phrasing, not just the underlying idea.
For documentation, the BACB doesn't mandate a specific form but they do audit randomly. I used a simple Excel log that matched the fields in the experience verification form — date, type of supervision, supervisee name, activities covered, duration, and supervisor signature.
Ask your supervisor to review and co-sign monthly rather than at the end — it's much harder to reconstruct if something's missing later.
Honestly the supervision situation you're describing is one I've been dealing with too, and it's stressful. What helped me was actually going through the BACB's fieldwork requirements really carefully and asking myself WHY certain hours don't count, not just memorizing that they don't. Like it's not enough to know your supervisor needs to be a BAS, you have to understand what that requirement is actually protecting, which is that the person signing off on your competency has demonstrated their own competency in that specific scope. Once I understood that, I stopped second-guessing every single log entry and could just apply the reasoning to new situations.
For the documentation piece, I'd suggest reaching out to the BACB directly before you get too deep into hours that might not qualify. I waited too long on a similar question and it created a mess I didn't need. Also keep your own notes on supervision sessions separate from just the official forms, because when you're studying for the exam itself, understanding why incorrect answers are wrong is so much more useful than a flashcard that just tells you the right one.
I was in a similar boat honestly. I work full-time at a school district and was doing my supervision hours around that, so I had to get really intentional about when I was actually accumulating fieldwork time versus just doing my regular job. What helped me was keeping a separate log in Google Sheets that I updated same-day, because I learned the hard way that trying to remember details from three weeks ago just doesn't work. For your situation I'd reach out to BACB directly about your supervisor's credentials -- they're actually pretty responsive and it's better to find out now than after you've logged 500 hours.
The documentation requirements felt overwhelming at first but I kind of broke it into a routine. Every Friday I'd block 20 minutes to review the week, make sure my supervisor had signed off, and check that I had notes for any restricted hours. It's tedious but it's also the kind of thing that'll save you a massive headache later. Don't wait for your supervisor to chase you down for signatures either -- I made that mistake in the first month and had to reconstruct a whole week's worth of context from memory.
I'll be honest, I almost quit twice during my fieldwork. My supervisor situation was messy too and I kept thinking why am I logging all these hours if half of them might get thrown out. What saved me was verifying everything with the BACB directly instead of guessing. Email them, get it in writing, keep the reply. It's boring advice but it's the difference between panic and knowing where you stand. Also make sure your monthly forms are signed as you go, not in a batch at the end. I learned that one the hard way.
As for the exam itself, I was convinced I'd fail and I didn't. The sections I blew off ended up mattering most, honestly the ethics and diversity stuff showed up way more than I expected. I drilled things like bas/questions/cultural competence and diversity 5 in my last two weeks and it genuinely helped. Keep going. The paperwork feels endless but it's temporary, and passing feels really good after almost walking away.