Best Review Course Boot Camp

To anyone that will listen, I have to take a second to give a shout out to THE BEST CFA Level III review course out there. It’s LEVEL UP BOOT CAMPS and Marc Lefebvre is a legend. Ron Burgundy style, legend. Rich mahogany and leather bound books type of legend. I was lucky enough to see the review materials for another study session provider (a friend of mine took it with them) and I choose to go to Omaha, NE to “get away” from the hustle and bustle of work/life in my own area.

I don’t know how to describe the level of passion that Marc has for his profession and for his students. His commitment to me / the other 120 people in Omaha was unparalleled. When I passed Level III 2 days ago at 6:23AM PST, he was the second person I called. The first was my wife, the third was my buddy as described above who unfortunately didn’t pass.

Marc has a genuine desire to beat the CFA and to make his students and his profession better. Call it pride, arrogance or competitive spirit…his drive and passion for the program, bettering the profession and bettering his students is something that I have yet to see anywhere else - personally or professionally. I offered Marc $10K to fly out to San Francisco and spend 4 days with me in a private boot camp. He declined and said I should wait for the SF boot camp. I told him how behind I was on the Study Sessions and he said, “well, you are really behind, that’s not good, come to Omaha and let’s see what we can do.” He spent 30 minutes on the phone with me before I signed up to ask about professional life, personal life and commitments…I would have paid $5K for the boot camp and to be honest, business school is $120K, so I would have probably paid way more.

I am beside myself and feel absolutely blessed to have found Marc and Level Up Boot Camps. CFA aside, I now consider him a friend and am forever indebted to him for his passion and desire for wanting us to achieve greatness.

Thank you, Marc!

e

The many people here who ask what more could I have done to pass have their answer: Marc. LevelUP. You get world class insight from a world class instructor.

There are those who say all you need to do is study and forget the boot camps, Marc, etc. Well, along those same lines, I might say to all those kids ar Harvard, all you need to do is study, forget those professors (just YouTube and read the syllabus . . .). Hmmmm. People still go to Harvard, or to thousands of other universities for which they could as easily substitute MOOCs or Coursera, etc. etc. They still go. The direct, forceful contact wtth the material, and engaging with it wtih others, hearing the questions, seeing the easy or the hard way . . . all of that is why people who “could just study on their own” go to SCHOOL. Marc is SCHOOL for Level III. Marc is the Harvard of Level III – further, he is an actual college professor, so he knows how to sense when class is drifing or clueless and bring it all back together. You need to give youself every conceivable advantage against tthis test; if you have already been “studying,” what makes you think that just more “studying” will give you an advantage? Marc is SEAL training for Level III. Nothing and noone compares to that experience and to the gift it provides.

Can’t speak to his bootcamp, but he was terrible teaching the online schweser classes (in my opinion). I ended up doing the London classes to avoid him.

Marc’s bootcamp this year is the only reason I passed Level III. The NYC bootcamp and a month of structured focused planning using Marc’s materials resulted in a hard fought and immensely rewarding pass. My only recommendation for improvement would be to have them scheduled in early April to allow for more ultra focused prep. I took Level 2 5 times with Schweser. I only needed 1 attempt at Level III with LevelUp.

Where did all these one time poster come from?

Study your ass off and you will pass.

Study your ass off + pay $3k on a boot camp and you will pass with a higher level of confidence.

I have heard nothing but good things about Marc’s camp and I do believe he’s doing it as a passion more than just the $. But dont expect to get by with just mediocre effort and believing that paying $3k will buy a pass.

There’s no easy way around it.

Marc and Schweser don’t mix. He’s stuck having to teach the Schweser material, from the Schweser material, in the Schweser way (if he even still teaches this stuff at all). You can almost hear him grinding his teeth as he does so. If you want to get Schweser, go to Windsor Week and luxuriate in doofusness. Don’t try and mix Marc with Schweser. That’s like shackling a greyhound to an anvil and then saying, “run”!

i agree. Marc is the man! took level up here in nyc and it’s one of the main reasons that i made it.

but please stop with this “**** you money” attitude telling everyone you would’ve paid much more for the bootcamp. not everyone is filthy rich. and i believe that money isn’t the only thing that motivates Marc to do what he does. he is really passionate in helping candidates to get over the hump.

How does LevelUp compare with Schweser Windsor Week or the Creighton University bootcamps?

I agree Marc’s bootcamp was very helpful to me passing level 3. Two points:

  1. The difference between him on the Schweser videos and him in the bootcamp were night and day. I did not like him on the Schweser videos. The only reason I went to the bootcamp was because people on the forum were ranting and raving about him. He really ended up being great in the bootcamp, he has a lot of passion for the subject, and he sincerely wants everyone in his class to pass.

  2. For the guy above who pointed out that a couple of people on this thread have minimal AF points, Marc is not paying people to post on this forum. He is very professional, and I cannot imagine him doing that. People write these posts because Marc helped many people to get through level 3 and the people he helped want to make sure Marc succeeds in his business.

I want to wholeheartedly, and without reservation, add my name to these shout-outs for Marc LeFebvre and LevelUp Bootcamps. He is THE superlative, must-have Level III bootcamp instructor, and he will walk with you every step of the way if you need motivation. FYI, I attended the LevelUp bootcamp in Boston this year and just learned that I passed Level III. I am also hearing that the rest of our crew in that room in Boston did really well.

I have read several of the threads on AF about Marc and the Schweser classes, and I can speak to Marc’s performance at BOTH the Schweser bootcamps and the LevelUp bootcamp. LevelUp is a far, far superior bootcamp to the Schweser alternative for Level III. I’m not sure what the financial difference is between the two bootcamps, but the cost of another year of pain is so much higher than any incremental expense. You get what you pay for. Marc has gone in fresh, vaccuuming up tips on every testable topic and simplifying subject matter that spans multiple study sessions. The slides are fantastic and Marc keeps improving them. His class delivery is fast-paced, engrossing and frequently hilarious. The notebook he provides of 15 years of past exams organized by study session was a far superior way to practice old exams. His suggested approach of working problem after problem in the same subject matter greatly improved master compared with practicing exams by year.

Let me put it this way…I used to think all CFA review courses were mediocre, because that’s all I had in my city. I don’t live in New York or Boston. Back in the days of Levels 1 and 2, I took a weekly, live, Schweser-sponsored review course at a local university where virtually all the instructors did was read the Schweser slides verbatim. It was a pretty poor showing. Then, I attended a Schweser camp that Marc led. It was night and day. He was so engaging, so good at explaining what mattered, and excellent at taking apart topics where the CFA curriculum is opaque and showing you how to put it back together in a way that you can remember and use. The best of the other Schweser instructors were smart enough, but they couldn’t hold people’s attention. The worse of them left you no better prepared at all. And they also tend to teach from the Schweser review materials. The truth is, there is absolutely no replacement for reading the actual CFA curriculum. Marc has always taught from the CFA books themselves.

When I attended the LevelUp bootcamp this year, because Marc had created his own study materials, his delivery and the materials synced up perfectly and he didn’t have to waste any time showing us the “Schweser way” and then explaining why “his way” made more sense than Schweser. His command of the material is better than ever after he created his own original materials.

The one thing I might add to his bootcamp is an optional extra day where you actually answer timed exam questions and turn them in for grading.

I am one of many participants in Marc’s classes who now consider Marc a friend. He got an email from me about 30 seconds after my husband did when I learned that I passed Level 3. He cares deeply about each person’s story and personal incentives to pass and he will give you a motivational kick during the peak study season if you ask him to do so. This guy is awesome and worth it.

So unless you respond better to a drier, by-the-books delivery by a David Hetherington type, allow yourself both to enjoy your Level III review and pass, too. Can’t recommend Marc highly enough.

A

So I heard the Bootcamp class pass rate has been extraordinary and amazing. Maybe now I can finally say “I told you so” to the people who went, got a lot out of it and passed:)

Godism17: Could you provide the pass rate? I attended Omaha and am curious how the class compares to prior years.

I’ve seen nothing but glowing (even over the top, actually) recommendations about Marc Lefebvre’s bootcamp. In fact, the recomendations are so consistently glowing that there seem to be 2 possibilities.

  1. He really is that good (hey - I see similar things about John Harris’s FRA workshop (ltho far less freauent), and no one has ever had a bad thing to say.

  2. There’s sockpuppetry and astroturfing going on. I used to do some web marketing, so I’m pretty familiar with the phenomena. I’ve seen both done incredibly well and also seen it done in a ham-handed way.

I’ve noticed also that a good number of the posters post on the bootcamp in their first few posts. Hmmm.

I would LOVE to TreeFiddy350 but you will have to just call Marc for the class pass rate. Do CALL. You will fall out of your chair. I did. Publishing it is apparently in violation of some bs thing I guess bc it’s hard for CFAI to verify claims and some providers could lie about it.

Last I asked however San Francisco and Omaha tied and you guys killed it!!! It’s like 7% greater than my old 2013 class. And it’s so crazy, I’m not sure I EVEN BELIVE IT…lol Either Marc’s material, methodology and teaching has gotten that good or all his students are reading the curriculum 5 times each and are all sadist (except me…lol). I actually thought the earliest class Boston, would do the best but the trend seems to be in reverse! The later classes are double digits ahead, Boston still beat the international pass rate by a substantial margin but not good by Bootcamp standards. That’s probably my fault, I was in the Boston class. I can’t seem to give CFAI what they want on test day and God seems to think this is funny and is using it to test my faith and sanity://

You have only 2 points Gregor Samsa, your post must also be a marketing post by Kaplan Schweser people to discount Marc. Really the best L3 instructor of our time, with pass rates that would back that, unfortunately unpublishable; tragic for candidates. There should be a GIPS for CFA providers so we all could compare and invest more wisely with the best performing money manager.

Here’s the another option:

  1. GODism17 said to Marc, ‘Marc, I’m sick and tired of being the only one saying anything on AF about your classes. Can you PLEASE tell your LevelUP Classes if they think the bootcamp was worth it or not to please write a darn review on AF…gggzzz’

So thanks everybody who made the effort to sign up for an AF account and write a review. The best in show needs to survive as a business to reduce unnecessary suffering in the CFA kingdom of madness. Every person that gets “saved” -passes- is one less person living in hell.