Hi everyone, I am preparing for the CFA Level 1 in June and I have started studying from the CFA books that were sent with the CFA curriculum but I recently came across this forum and realized that a lot of people are recommending Schweser. I am not sure what to do anymore, I have already spent $1000 in CFA books and I am not sure if I should spend $500-600 more on the Schweser essential package.
Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
If you can afford it why not? A lot of people on this forum recommend Schweser or Elan. Most pass L1 by just covering with Schweser notes and the helpful QBank that comes along with it.
You don’t NEED to spend on Schweser or Elan. You have time, start studying and see how quick your progress is in going through the curriculum. You can make the switch to Schweser/Elan anytime if you feel you need a more “efficient” route.
You do not need to purchase Schweser if you believe you are dedicated enough to go through the CFAI curriculum. I was not sure what to do, but I eventually chose to go through the curriculum. The only difference is that I started a while ago. Going through the entire curriculum is difficult, you often feel overwhelmed by the amount of information contained in all 6 books. Just persevere and you’ll eventually get through them. However, if I were in your situation, with 5 months left to the exam, I would probably go with Schweser as the CFAI curriculum takes a LOT of time to read in its entirety. You need to factor in 1 month for review so that gives you approximately 4 months to go through the curriculum. It is possible, but I would not take a chance. But it is up to you, if you read quickly and you’re able to retain a ton of information in a relatively short time, go with the curriculum.
Schweser is the CFAI material condensed so that it only covers the LOS’s. CFAI gives you a lot of material which I feel is useful but not essential. If you have a list of the LOS’s for each reading as you do it, it should help you focus on the important information. What I did for December was write out every LOS before doing each reading, this way when you take notes you can attribute each note you take to a specific LOS.