After seeing Level 3ers agonising wait for the results release yesterday, I was wondering how were the results released back in the old days when emails did not exist?
Do people chase after the postman or something else?
Also, do you think the current format of email notification should be continued or something else be done?
It used to be that you logged into the website and checked. I was around for that for one year (‘09) before they switched to e-mail. As much as people whine and moan about e-mails being slow, I can’t begin to say how much better that is vs logging into the CFAI website. The site would start crawling around 8:30 as people wanted to check, and then would IMMEDIATELY crash once 9AM hit. I was told by people on AF that this was always the case - the CFAI’s site was woefully underprepared for all several hundred thousand people hammering “refresh” at the same time.
Before that, I imagine it was either mail or phone (automated system, maybe).
Overall, I think the current system is very, very, very good. Getting out several hundred thousand custom e-mails in a span of 4 hours is not an easy feat for an organization that only does it twice a year (if you include the release of Dec level 1 results). CFAI is not an e-mail marketing firm, nor are they a data processing service, so I really don’t have a lot of complaints with the fact that it took me a few hours to get my results in my inbox for levels 2 and 3. I’m kinda amazed that people on AF expect their results to instantly appear at 9:01. CFAI is not sending a single e-mail that can be processed near instantly; they’re saying “we will start the process of generating result e-mails and pushing them out to people at 9AM EST.”
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i remember logging onto the site to check.
i agree, email is way better
I took L1 in the prior millennium and they mailed letters. They gave no indication of exactly when anything would be sent either. I can’t recall when they switched to logging into the website, but that sucked bigtime.
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They actually release the results on the website a day later. I actually waited that extra day last year and got my L2 results at the website (my e-mail was having issues and I was on vacation, so I just opted to enjoy another day while pretending the results weren’t there yet).
^ That’s hardcore.
If you ever win a lottery, will you just keep it under your pillow and wait until the following day to cash it?
Yea seriously, anyone complaining about the email system don’t know anything about the horror of having to LOG IN while 100k people were all trying to log in at the SAME TIME, and crashing the servers.
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I wrote in 2007, 2008 and then had to do level 3 twice, in 2009 and 2010. The first year I wrote, CFAI did not even tell you the day that results would come out ahead of time, so there was a lot of anticipation day after day… THEN the struggle to get through to the crashing site when the results did arrive! I too found the email approach to be better. The emails don’t come right at 9, but its really not that bad compared to the “old” days!
One of my collegues who took the tests in the 90s told me they used to first send you a letter telling you the date that they would mail the results out. Then you at least knew within a couple of days when you could expect your results in the mail. I like the current email system compared to the “try to log in for an hour or two while the servers are all jammed up” system. Then again, I got my results with 40 minutes of 9AM EST this year, so I wasn’t suffering all day like some other L3 takers were.
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The current e-mail system is the most efficient.
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