I do not have a degree in accounting, but I took enough of accounting (about 40 credits) in order to qualify for the CPA exam. I do not think that those accounting courses were a piece of cake as you said (my GPA is 4.0 in all these courses). I also want to say that the classes I took at college prepared me well for the CPA exam.
AUD: I took only one auditing class at college, which covered everything except for information technology aspect of auditing. All other areas were adequately covered. For AUD, 85% I picked up in college, 15% in my review course.
REG: I took only one course in taxation and two classes in business law. The taxation class prepared me well for individual taxation topics covered on the CPA exam, but hey, I never took a course in corporate or partnership taxation. Hence, I do not have any grounds to complain that I had to spend a lot of time learning corporate and partnership taxes. For REG, 65% I studied in college, 35% in my review course.
BEC: All the finance and managerial accounting classes I took prepared me well for the exam. The only portion of the BEC exam was information technology; this I had to learn on my own. Besides I do not know a review course or a formal college IT class that would adequately cover the topic. For BEC, 80% I studied in college, 10% on my own, and 10% in my review course.
FAR: I took two courses in principles of accounting, two courses in intermediate, and one course in advanced. I do not think that whatever is covered on the CPA exam related to these topics was any different from a review course or from my accounting coursework. Well, except for pensions (which I decided not to study much while at college), and governmental and non-profit (which I never took a formal class on). For FAR, 75% I studied in college, and 25% in my review course.
I also know people who did well in their accounting classes at college and were able to pass CPA exams right after college, without taking any review course.
The bottom line is - it all depends on an individual and how serious this individual is while studying at college. I also think that no review course will be any good if you never studied (or pretended that you did study) accounting at college. I did not go to a top accounting school, but all my professors knew what they were talking about... Most of my professors were either CPAs or JDs, and knew what the CPA exam is all about, and tried to prepare students for the exams. My college auditing exams were very difficult - later the professor told us that many questions he took from Wiley.
