Definition of Professional Planning Experience

The following criteria define professional planning experience in the work of an individual applicant. While the criteria are more likely to be met in an agency (private or government), institute, or firm engaged in comprehensive planning, instruction, or research, this is not a prerequisite.

• Applicants offering experience in more narrowly focused places of work should take particular care in showing how that experience meets the four criteria.
• Applicants must respond to each AICP professional planning criterion for each employment position. Applicants must provide unique responses with specific examples that demonstrate how a particular position satisfies a particular professional planning criterion. Copied-and-pasted responses for different criteria pertaining to the same employment position or for the same criteria across different employment positions will not be accepted. Responses must be at least 250 words but may not exceed 500 words.

NOTE: Information on Non-Traditional Planning Experience

Professional Planning Experience

Professional planning experience — whether acquired through practice, teaching, or research — must address all four of the following criteria.

A. APPLY A PLANNING PROCESS APPROPRIATE TO THE SITUATION

Professional urban, rural, and regional planning applies a process appropriate to the situation. The process involves a number of steps, including problem/opportunity definition, goal setting, generating alternate strategies, strategy choice, implementation, and evaluation. A professional planning process should be oriented toward the future, value change, and resource constraints. A clear process should be evident in the quality of research, analysis, and teaching (if applicable); process should also guide the format of the planning policy or program.

Please examine the following sections of professional planning content and for each relevant section address:

• The extent your employment experience incorporates the knowledge and tasks outlined for that section (be specific, but you need not incorporate all items listed).
• How you incorporate a professional urban and regional planning process in the areas you have selected.

Your response to each of the three sections must be at least 250 words but may not exceed 500 words. If a particular section below is not relevant, you will need to briefly state why. For example, individuals who serve as faculty in a college or university department of urban and regional planning may have experience relevant only to section "3. Research, Analysis, and Teaching" and not to "1. Plan Making and Implementation" or to "2. Functional Areas of Practice."

AICP maintains that the lists of professional planning activities provided in each section exemplify typical experiences of planners eligible for certification. These lists are not intended to be exhaustive. Applicants are not required to address every activity listed in each section, but rather only those they would like to discuss to demonstrate how their employment meets the criterion of applying an appropriate planning process in practice, research, or teaching. Applicants who are uncertain about their eligibility for certification based on employment experience should visit the AICP Certfication Exam FAQ.

1. Plan Making and Implementation

• Visioning and goal setting
• Demographics and economics
• Land use and development regulations
• Application of legal principles
• Growth management techniques
• Budgets and financing options
• Development plan and project review
• Program evaluation
• Communications techniques
• Intergovernmental relationships
• Stakeholder relationships
• Project and program management

2. Functional Areas of Practice

• Community development
• Comprehensive or long-range planning
• Economic development and revitalization
• Educational, institutional, or military facilities planning
• Energy policy
• Food systems planning
• Hazard mitigation and disaster planning
• Historic preservation
• Housing
• Infrastructure
• Labor force and employment
• Land use and transportation
• Natural resources, and the environment
• Parks, open space, and recreation
• Planning law
• Policy planning
• Public services
• Social and health services
• Urban design

3. Research, Analysis, and Teaching

Research and Analysis
Quantitative and qualitative research methods; Collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting data; Economic analysis and forecasting; Environmental analysis; Spatial analysis and geographic information systems (GIS); Policy analysis and decision making; Design and implementation of research initiatives; Design and implementation of surveys; Professional literature search of best practices.

The AICP Exam Application Review Committee will consider the prime purpose of the research, the stage of the research, the organizational context of the research, and how the research affects the implementation of urban and regional planning policy.

Note: Relevant research undertaken towards a master's or doctorate degree qualification is eligible, provided the following: the master's or doctorate degree is in a department of urban and regional planning, and the research cannot be part of course work for a grade (AICP requires that education and experience remain separate entities).

Teaching
Experience should focus on the activities described in the sections of professional planning content above (Plan Making and Implementation; Functional Areas of Practice; and Research and Analysis). Courses should focus on urban, rural, and regional planning or apply to interest groups or community groups in the context of policy engagement. Teaching activities may include course development (lesson plans), instruction, research, or writing papers.

B. EMPLOY AN APPROPRIATELY COMPREHENSIVE POINT OF VIEW

Professional urban, rural, and regional planners employ an appropriately comprehensive point of view when implementing professional planning tasks. A comprehensive point of view means looking at the consequences of making a proposed decision as they affect various aspects of a community's quality of life: physical, environmental, social, economic, and governmental.

Proposed decisions should conform to the larger spatial context in which they are made and implemented (consider national, state, regional, county, or municipal contexts as well as urban, suburban, small town/rural, neighborhood, districts, and corridors). Treat multiple policies, actions, or systems simultaneously when interlinkages are too great to treat separately. Consider neighboring jurisdictions and broader geographic areas.

Discuss how you employed an appropriately comprehensive point of view when implementing the professional planning tasks you described in response to Criterion A. Apply a Planning Process Appropriate to the Situation.

C. INVOLVE A PROFESSIONAL LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY AND RESOURCEFULNESS

A professional level of responsibility and resourcefulness means initiative, judgment, substantial involvement, and personal accountability for defining and preparing significant substantive elements of planning activities.

Discuss how you were a responsible and resourceful professional through the professional planning tasks you described in response to Criterion A. Apply a Planning Process Appropriate to the Situation.

D. INFLUENCE PUBLIC DECISION MAKING IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Professional urban, rural and regional planners influence public decision making in the public interest. Planning practice professionals should aspire to certain principles regarding their overall responsibility to the public.

Discuss how you influenced public decision making in the public interest according to the principles outlined in the AICP Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct — A. Principles to Which We Aspire — 1. Our Overall Responsibility to the Public.

Part-Time and Prorated Experience

Persons engaged in part-time professional planning experience may prorate that experience into a full-time equivalent.

For example, a position in which the applicant worked only 20 hours/week for six months may prorate that experience into the full-time equivalent of three months of professional planning experience.

Similarly, persons working full time, but devoting a portion of their time to another field, may also prorate that experience into a full-time equivalent.

For example, a position in which an environmental planner worked 40 hours/week for two years and devoted half her time to environmental science and half her time to professional planning may prorate that experience into the full-time equivalent of one year of professional planning experience.

Non-Traditional Professional Planning Experience

While AICP's four professional planning criteria are more likely to be met in an agency (private or government), institute, or firm engaged in comprehensive planning, instruction, or research, this is not a prerequisite. Persons with non-traditional professional-level planning experience are encouraged to apply, but will still be required to justify how the experience is at a professional level in their response to Criterion C: Involve a Professional Level of Responsibility and Resourcefulness.

We realize that applicants with non-traditional planning experience may have more difficulty explaining how the work is at a professional level within the confines of the 500 word maximum.  Applicants who need more space to defend how their non-traditional planning experience is at a professional level may contact us at aicpexam@planning.org. We will consider granting an extension to the 500 word maximum on a case-by-case basis. The intent is to enable applicants with non-traditional professional-level planning experience — who would not usually apply — to defend how their work in the position is at a professional level in response to Criterion C. Just as with traditional experience, you may prorate non-traditional experience as appropriate.

What do we mean by "non-traditional professional-level" planning experience? 

By "non-traditional professional-level” planning experience we mean work that would not ordinarily fit into the rubric of AICP's four criteria that define professional planning experience because the work was in an unpaid or volunteer capacity, but that involved the same level of initiative, judgment, substantial involvement, and personal accountability for defining and preparing significant substantive elements of planning activities as required of a full-time planner at an agency, institute, or firm engaged in comprehensive planning, instruction, or research.

Although there is often a fine line between professional-level and pre-professional planning experience, the former generally involves a greater level of personal responsibility and more substantive technical accomplishments.

For example, volunteer work at a Community Organization would not usually be considered professional planning experience if the applicant was only responsible for setting up meetings, processing development and zoning applications, providing general customer service, etc.  However, the experience may be considered to be at a professional-level if the applicant was also involved with or responsible for:

• The preparation of research and documents;
• The supervision of projects;
• The presentation of proposals and plans before decision-making bodies;
• Providing significant input in one or more facets of a project (e.g. giving technical expertise in areas such as computer application, strategy development, impact analysis, etc.)

What do we NOT mean by "non-traditional professional-level” planning experience?

Non-planning work in related fields or professions (unless the work constitutes a minor element of the applicant's experience in the planning position). Examples include:

• Law
• Architecture
• Landscape architecture,
• Engineering
• etc.

Not Generally Considered Professional Experience

1. Work in related fields, unless it constitutes a minor element of the applicant's planning experience. The following illustrates types of work in related fields sometimes performed by planners, but more often by other professionals:
   • Subdivision design
   • Large scale housing or site design work
   • Traffic engineering or highway design
   • Land surveying or mapping
   • Community organization
   • Social work
2. Experience in related professions (e.g., law, architecture, landscape architecture, engineering).
3. Market research or analysis, and other types of physical and social science research normally performed by other professionals or academic disciplines.
4. Work at a pre-professional level. Although there is often a fine line between professional experience and pre-professional experience, the latter generally involves less personal responsibility and less substantive technical accomplishments along the lines of the above four criteria that define professional planning experience.
5. Elected and appointed officials: While contributions by members of city councils, boards of commissioners, planning commissions, boards of zoning appeals, and citizen advisory boards are indeed invaluable to the advancement of planning, service on such a body, by itself, does not constitute professional planning experience.