What’s your personal experience? Are they any good?
Marc LeFebvre - LevelUp. The best.
I did both LevelUp and Financial Talent Exchange. LevelUp helped get through material 100% coverage. Picked up some very helpful and solid tips.
FTE, in hindsight, was crucial for dealing with the written part. Miller ingrains into your brain how to write the answers for max point value with time management being the central focus.
I can’t tell you that one is better, because both give you invaluable tips. For me they complemented each other very well.
Post exam FTE is almost a must have to prepare for the written section of the exam!
I always find it very mysterious how Levelup reviews come from accounts with virtually no A.F points.
It’s as if accounts are created to answer the question…
I did IFT.
Arif was very good. I highly recommend his videos - they are long and cover the curriculum pretty much 95%. If you get his notes, I believe it is a substitute for reading the curriculum itself.
I did schweser too. I would say out of all the readings, the reading on option was not done well on IFT. Well, the only reason I say that is because IFT went with the manner of explanation as done in the curriculum (which is what IFT is good for), but with this particular reading, I would say that David Hetherington on schweser is THE BEST…I would say David’s currency is amazing too. Actually, now that I think about it, David’s individual and institutional IPS was the best too (especially the Individual). IFT, again followed the curriculum, and gave the Inger example, which although detailed, doesn’t cover the breadth of the topic like David does. I would say institutional is about the same on both IFT and schweser.
I would also highly suggest Wiley, but only do the ones with David Miller, and they guy who does the end ones. The dude for Asset allocation and Fixed income were not as good.
To Rex’s point - I’ve seen the same sort of comments in the past regarding lack of post points and LevelUp reviews.
I have a bit more than Vinny but I don’t comment much on here - I creep more than anything. That said, I did use LevelUp this year and I thought Marc did a great job with trying to get you to understand the material. Practicing the AM portion of the exam is on you though.
I believe that you mean _ Daren _ Miller.
sorry, yeah…Daren Miller is very good. His 11th hour videos were very good too
LevelUp because Marc will force you to read the core curriculum…page by page. But in my opinion, the best value of LevelUp is combination of his videos and the BootCamp, which is somewhat pricey when you add it all.
I have failed with Schweser last year with a band 10. I have a lot Schweser, I did not see anything David gave in his live videos I could not read on my own. Nothing special! I recently learn some simple way to pick points from LevelUp. I have never knew there were some very special way one can quickly do the IPS calculations and pick up the maximum point even if you don’t get exact answer. I can comment on this IFT since I have never tried it.
Marc is very good too.
I don’t know of a way to pick up max points on IPS even if I don’t get the right answer, so I guess it would be worth it. I had seen some of his videos on private wealth (taxes and estate), and trading and monitoring (his video on attribution analysis was very very good) back when he was with schweser. It was out of my budget by a little bit though
I used to lurk here a lot and didn’t post very often but when I did it was to sing the praises of level up bootcamp. I wouldn’t have become a charterholder without it. I think Marc’s students post so positively about him because they truly believe, like I do, that he added a lot of value to their studies.
I marked 80 Level III morning exams this year. I had a few candidates who obviously studied from Marc LeFebvre’s materials because of the very organized way they set up and calculated the return requirement for an individual investor, and because they drew Marc’s rectangle when calculating micro attribution on a portfolio.
Everyone to whom I talked about Marc’s classes and materials had nothing but good things to say about them.
I also had one candidate who had taken Daren Miller’s course in Victoria. He was extremely pleased with the individual attention he got from Daren; he said that it was a great preparation for the exam.
Naturally my comment is a little fleeting. I know Marc is a great instructor. You can find some of his old Schweser videos around the internet. I merely point out that it is somewhat peculiar that low point posters and new accounts coincidentally happen to pop up when questions arise on whether Marc’s course is best.
No doubt, he is a fine instructor.
S2000 - Is this what you’re talking about? Here is my post from a different thread:
I am surprised how people here are all praising this individual Miller or his firm FTE. It tells me how inaccurate/misrepresentative these blogs could be for somebody looking for a good advice. On this same forum, when i asked about FTE/Miller earlier, nobody chimed in, and now all of a sudden people are singing praises!
A lot of us got burn by going to FTE- classes were months/weeks behind schedule, a 23 yr old was one of their instructor !!
by no means age is a bar, but seriously…23 yr old taking L3 classes!!
STAY AWAY FROM FTE/MILLER
Anyway, i liked IFT, Mark Meldrum.
Marc F. while i have never taken his classes has pretty consistently been ranked top notch.
I don’t know about this user, but Miller has NO 11th hour video…
I have failed with Schweser last year with a band 10. I have done or used a lot Schweser materials, I did not see anything David gave in his live videos something I could not read or do on my own. Nothing special! I recently learn some simple way to pick points from LevelUp. I have never knew there were some very special way one can quickly do the IPS calculations and pick up the maximum point even if you don’t get exact answer. I cannot comment on this IFT since I have never tried it.
That’s the one all right.
I was a re-taker this year and used Level Up videos this time (no bootcamp) and was happy with the product. Felt much more prepared this year. Also used Meldrum videos to go over weak spots and just for a different perspective, and thought they were well worth the money for the last two months of review.