I am currently enrolled in a full-time MBA program and will be officially done my last exams in mid-April. I would like to do level 1 in June 2008. Is it realistic to begin studying in mid-April and still expect to get through all the material? This will give me roughly 6 weeks…keep in mind I have nothing to do from the time I finish my MBA exams until the CFA examination date. I am committed to putting in 8-10 hours per day so I can definitely get a solid 250 - 300 hours of studying done. Any advice would be appreciated.
you’ll probably go crazy but you could do it If you put in the hours
if you know someone who is taking the june exam, i would ask to flip through their study materials. that will give you the best idea because only you can gauge your ability to learn that much material such a small time period.
JRyan, I did exactly that! I signed up for the 2007 Dec L1 a mere six weeks before the exam. Usually this should not have been possible due to cutoff deadlines, but as of October there was some kind of glitch in India regarding registration, and to be fair globally they kept the registration deadline open in all countries, so I was able to register. You already have a headstart compared to where I was, namely that you are coming from MBA background. I am a physics grad student and had little exposure to financial statements, economics, corporate finance, fixed income, etc. I only had a little exposure to derivatives and super basic portfolio management, and decent quant skills. But I studied hard for 6 weeks, and even for the last 2 weeks was able to borrow the Schweser books from my brother’s friend who took the L1 in June. (If I would have had those books for the whole 6 weeks I’d have done MUCH better. Advice to you : Buy the Schweser books!) How did I do on the exam? It’s hard to tell, I think there’s a very good chance that I passed, but in either case I think I’m close to the border. Almost every question I saw on the exam I at least _thought_ I understood most of it to answer, but of course there’s always trick questions. And some of those two parters I got one right and had to guess on the other. So comparatively I would assume that someone coming from an MBA program would already have a huge headstart over what I had, assuming your MBA classes at least have some overlap with the CBOK. And presumably you’ve had some econ studies too (my weakest subject).
Possible, I would highly not recommend it. I crammed for 8 weeks for level one and squeaked by. But I feel like a few guesses in the wrong direction could have sank me, I was probably that close. And I studied an insane amount. I would suggest you start casually reading about 10-15 hours a week now just to ease the pain. Its just not worth the added stress of postponing the preparation.
vbcfa offers some good advice. Though there’s not much that’s really difficult, there is a LOT of material to cover - don’t believe anyone else’s appraisal of your chances of passing except your own (after you’ve had a chance to assess what you’re up against).
Check out this link “How to do the CFA in 50 days”: http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,617060,632492#msg-632492
If you did well on your core MBA subjects (all the quant stuff first year: stats, acctg, finance, macroµ) you’ll find Level I pretty straightforward. 6 weeks is plenty of time.
Thanks for all the input. I will definitely flip through the study materials first before making a final decision.
Your question just gave me a big headache.
What was this glitch in India regarding registration? Doesn’t seem very plausible…