This author is so messed up, his arguments are so completely asinine (most of which are completely untrue), here are some of these gems:
"The CFA is now held in higher esteem than virtually all MBAs or Master’s Degrees ". LOL not true at all. Ask the thousands of CFA charterholders who consistenly lose out to people straight out of school from a good MBA program.
here’s another “If the CFA didn’t exist I believe we would have more brilliant people working in areas that contribute more to society” LOL x2
“Would you ever trust a person that holds undergraduate degrees in marketing and creative writing but happened to ace the MCAT as your doctor?” That’s why there’s a 4 year work experience requirement dumbazz. and again, ask anyone looking for a finance job or looking to break in. Experience >>> having the CFA letters 99% of the time
“I know many people who have been through the CFA program and almost none of them have come out on the other end making a single friend or acquaintance.” Dumbazz, it’s a self study curriculum. What the F did you expect?
so many more hilarious comments, If ya’ll want a good laugh, read it
If itera is here seems that things went tough for the defencive side )) Logging off for now but i gonna read the comments and to reply, after the commercials we are back))
I think CFAI should be thankful to CFAilure, because this guy helped a lot to consolidate opinions of CFA candidates that CFAI is very fair and immunize from the future harm.
Looks like CFAilure is Goldstein from 1984, while CFAI is our beloved Big Brother
CFAilure-Goldstein - keep up the good work. Your goal is to have more than 50 pages in this thread to beat Qbee.
CFAilure - i think everyone in professional sports’ Halls of Fame should have to come out of retirement for one weekend to play vs. current competition. That way, they can prove, even though some are in their late 80s and suffer from dementia, that they still belong in the Hall of Fame, because their achievements are outdated and some would argue today it is much harder than 50yrs ago.
sounds stupid doesn’t it?
I busted my a$$ for 4+ yrs to EARN the charter, working full time and raising 3 kids (all 3 were born while I was a CFA candidate). I failed 2 exams (Level 2 and 3 each once) during my pursuit, and as upset, angry, TIRED, and frustrated as I was, I never made excuses. I suggest you swallow your pride, check your entitlement at the door, and please stop with this bulls*$%. Save your time and energy to pass this exam next year, or go off and do other pleasantries in life. The CFAI president should be recognized for promptly replying to your outrageous emails, especially coming from someone who has (from what i gathered in his reply) complained in the past many times.
S2000 and itera, thank you for all that you do. I am glad to be a part of a global group of ethical, hard working, respectful people, who take pride in their work and achievements.
A letter I received from the CFAI President today:
Congratulations wct2010, You are now a CFA® charterholder and may begin using the CFA designation. As a charterholder, you join a global community of over 130,000 investment management professionals dedicated to shaping and upholding the highest professional standards, cultivating strong and fair investment markets, and putting investors’ interests first. It is our goal at CFA Institute to support you with the educational tools, career resources, and networking opportunities you need to uphold these standards, excel in your career, and contribute meaningfully to the global investment management profession. We invite you to visit our website to begin exploring opportunities and resources for new CFA Institute members. We will mail your printed charter and welcome information to your primary address in the next six to eight weeks. It is important that you please review our trademark usage guidelines before you begin using your CFA designation on business cards and other promotional materials. We applaud you for your diligent work and congratulate you again on your achievement! Regards, Paul Smith, CFA President and CEO CFA Institute
It seems that I am the only person that believes CFAilure exhibits some very valid points.
First, i believe that the 300 hours average is very far from reality. No, I don’t have any data to support this opinion and yes I know that plenty of candidates have managed to pass the exam with even lower than 300 hours of studying. However, based on the size of the curriculum and the nature of human memory, I believe that the average is much higher.
Second, I really doubt the 300 hours reported in survey is objective and based on solid data. How many candidates really clocked their studying hours and what the definition of studying hours? If for example I start studying at 10:00 in the morning and stop at 16:00 with 6 mini breaks do I report 6 hours or …?
As such, in my opinion no average studying time shall be provided since it may be misleading. Nobody knows this number and no reasonable estimate can be made.
P.S.: No, I am not a loser. 3/3s passer with flying colours (level 1 all >70%, level 2 all but two >70% and level 3 all but 3 > 70% exceeding 99% of candidates according to 300h)
Granted 300 hours can be too less - for some people, including me. Why do you care if CFAI says 300 hours? Has anyone failed simply because they scheduled exactly 300 hours and no more, for study?
I passed 3/3 with no backgroud in finance. L1 took at least 500-600 hours as I learnt the difference between an asset and a liability. L2 the same because of the sheer breadth of the material. L3 the same because I kept screwing up on portfolio returns questions - kind of a big deal for L3! I am pretty sure all of these were my shortcomings. I didn’t think CFAI had intentionally misled anyone. Plenty of people here did study 300 or less hours and passed.
The rest of the whines are really not true, so I don’t see a need to respond to them.
I do feel sympathetic for people who are not well-versed in English, but I think CFA is too niche to offer in everyone’s language of choice.
The author is comparing LSAT and MCAT with CFA exams without probably realizing that it is not an apples to apples comparison. LSAT and MCAT are just entrance exams to get into law school and medical school. The correct comparison would be to compare JD and MD degrees to the CFA designation since all 3 require a bachelor degree and then some education for 3-4-5 years. (3 years law school, 4 years med school and an average of 4 years for CFA self study).
As to the question “Would you ever trust a person that holds undergraduate degrees in marketing and creative writing but happened to ace the MCAT as your doctor?”. Just acing MCAT does not make anybody a doctor. The person has to complete the medical school, do residency, and then pass the state licensing exam. If a person has done all that, then yes, I will trust that person. Actually, I do not even know what or where my doctors got their Bachelor degrees. I just know that they finished medical school and are licensed to practice medicine.
I can see your point for someone in Level I, who can claim the 300 hours is misleading (which I don’t think it is); but by level 3 one should have a good idea how long they need to study for a CFA exam, ESPECIALLY for Cfailure who wrote Level 3 seven times.
Paul Smith wrote me (I would like to thank him for that here): Dear [CFAilure] we do not re publish old curricula because the curriculum changes every year. Therefore to avoid students studying the wrong material we remove old copies of the text from circulation. Your point about regular re testing is a good one and one that we have considered. It is a possible direction for us to go in. However, at present we believe our members’ commitment to continuous professional education is a better method of ensuring that members keep up to date with industry developments.
Thank you very much for your reply. We are both understand that it is merely a technical issue of marking old Curriculum materials; they could be marked with different color, a mark in red, put into separate page of your website with speaking url; this issue is no more than technical. We both understand that the real main reason is not one you mentioned (which is true as well), but well the same one the Institute does not make public the MPS: you would like to avoid comparison between the credentials of different Charterholders. Concerning the re-testing, could you please just disclose to all the financial market participants (not to potential Candidates and Candidates only) that the Curriculum of, say, 1997 and of 2015 are testing really different knowledge base, so Charterholders who earned their Charters before 2005 never tested on partial parts of CBOK of today. Thank you very much for your patience.
these suggestions are all partially valid but all cost money and time. The examination and curriculum process is always a balance between efficiency, cost and execution. I am happy with the balance that we currently have but I very much appreciate your point of view and your contribution to our thinking.
