Just wanted to Congratulate all those who passed this year and hard luck for those who didn’t. You will make it next time. Just wanted to share my experience with CFA. I started it as a 21 year old boy and finally crossed the final hurdle as a 28 year old man. Its been a long journey with long study hours, heartbreaks and what not. Here is how it went:
Congrats!!! While family, friends, co-workers can be nice about congratulating, etc. I think only people that have a similar story truly understand the feeling after seeing “Congrats” on that email.
I’m a humanities fucktard with no math skills and here I am too. On top of the world! CFA if I can do it, so can any English major from a prestigiuous US university.
I’ve blazed the path! (Actually others did before me - Bromion for example)
Level 3 is an English majors wet dream compared to level 3. It’s likes writing an essay on Tony Morrison. Just say exactly what the professors want to hear, “White people oppress black people. Black men oppress black women. Black women are beautiful. You go girl!”
2014 … Im going to smash the hell out of level 3 … I said the same thing last year when I failed but I didnt know that a three-year relationship would end right before engagement AND my father would spend 2 months at the hospital … I hope all go fine this year so I can finally pass this thing… it’s frustrating…
It takes a lot to regroup after a failures, let alone after few failures. I failed Level 3 once and didn’t think I would retake if I failed twice. Thanks God, I didn’t have to. Hats off to perseverent people
people who don’t have the experience can’t even comprehend the blood sweat and tears! so it means 100x more when a CFA candidate or charterholder congratulates me when i passed!
and others who have taken 2-3 years break in between.
So many candidates feel obligated to continue when they fail, and anyone tells them otherwise is “discouraging” and try to “weed out the competition” or a straight up “bitch” (>_
but it’s good to know people who have paused for 11 years and still come back with a bang!
June 2010 - Failed Level II (Band 4) - barely cracked a book
September 2010 - Failed CAIA Level II (severely depressed at this point)
March 2011 - Passed CAIA II
June 2011 - Failed CFA II (Band 8) - too tired from CAIA, should have passed
June 2012 - Failed CFA II (Band 6) - just a flat out difficult test
June 2013 - PASS CFA II - crushed it actually Corp. Fin, Derivs. FRA, Equity all above 70
June 2014 - Pass CFA III ? We’ll see
Basically every year I’ve seen an army of kids lining up to take this test. I know that if I didn’t pass one of the little mf’ers would be a step away from my job. I started this journey when I was 26, now I’m 30, and I’ve only got one more to go. Congrats to everyone who has stuck around this long.
june 2013 failed III band 4( still not sure what band 4 means)
june 2014? ( will give it a run primarily focusing on mocks and eoc questions)
since I already have read all material and broken down into my own notes, I think the thing I was missing was a good strategy for the essay portion. I really bombed it. PM session was solid though.
anyone else want to give CFA institute a giant middle finger today besides me?