A letter I sent to CFAI President

CFAilure:

Where did you send the letter to? I am thinking of following your footsteps.

Info@cfaistitute.com Ask them for his private email. He also has a public twitter account@paulsmithcfa smth like that

I think when you get the exam next year -(by registering in next year exam)- you will do same mistakes that you have did in this year exam

^^you’re right, I don’t know anything about you other than that you struggled with this program for quite some time and that it might not be for you. Do you mind sharing what your study program was? What were your scores on Mocks going in? What does your matrix look like? How many hours you put in? How many mocks you did?

Don’t take my comment as a scornful note to you. I have no intention of rubbing salt on your wound right now, but it’s hard to take someone seriously when they simply say “i studied hard” or “i put in a lot of hours” or “i put in X attemps, please give me charter.” We’re not in high-school anymore where you could squeeze out a few more point on a paper from a teacher by showing that you’re a hard worker. Hard work without adequate results to show for means jack in most workplaces.

They really gave you his work e-mail?

My AM results were also completely screwed up with all sections except one below 50%. This was my third time taking the Level 3 and I had substantially better results in my previous attempts. This time i was very confident and knew answers to 85% of the questions. I scored pretty good on the PM part, so I really believe that something wrong happened.

Easy. If you want the CFA letters, you will be ‘encouraged’ to register for 2016.

What’s the problem here?

stop whining, if you failed, you failed. study harder next time

I agree with ink, taking L2 7 times seems excessive and maybe the CFA program is not the right thing for you. But I look forward to hearing how they respond to your email.

53% of people successfully passed the exam including retakers, it’s not just enough to know and understand the topic it is also your responsibility to know the way CFAI wants you to answer the questions. All part of the curriculum, accept that and move on. Good luck next year.

No whining at all. But I would like to discuss the integrity of the exam and not my perfomance. Please let me know when i need your opinion on my personal professional life or my preparation process. If i would like you to discuss my haircut i will let you know too. Thanks. The email. I will ask him if i can make it public here. But anyway sending to customer service and asking for the service request number can work fine imo.

Itera: Do you really believe that CFAI does not make errors? Nobody can be accourate 100% and mistakes happen, so if you consider that they are right 99.99%, there is still a chance of getting a few results wrong. 28,000 participants took the level 3 exam this year and use 0.01% error chance, you get 2.8. Is it an unreasonable assumption?

CFA teaches lot about transperancy, ethics etc. … so i’m bit surprised that thier Level 3 exam result/feedback is totally vague. I felt that way when i failed 1st try back in 2013. I hope say for extra $100, they can give you some feedback. Back then i got whole bunch below 50% … and i was wondering, a) did i write answer in wrong section, b) did they not able to read my handwring or c) did they misplace my paper. If they could give bit more details/feedback, then you know how to improve next year. Perhaps for additonal fee, they can give you bit more like what was your exact grade, reason for your low score - perhaps they catagorizes the reaso with 5 or 10 common reason (i.e. can’t read your handwring, or you put answer on wrong tempalte etc etc). At least give some feedback to the people who spent $hundereds of dollars registering for it, and more imporantly spent 300-500 hours plus preparing for the exam.

Yes, lets assume that the 6 unsuccesful attempts at level 2 for the OP are also due to failures on the part of the CFAI.

INK: I am going to post my case details later today and would like to hear your opinion on a possibility of an error

CFAilure - i respectfully disagree with the premise of your letter to the CFAI President.

I understand your frustration in your result (i failed Band 9 last yr, passed this yr); however, your points and “venting” are sort of all over the place.

1 - how many hours they report it takes the average candidate is completely irrelevant. If they told you 200 hrs, or 600 hrs, would that change your test results or your preparation. It’d be one thing if you failed Level 1 and are complaining about this, but you’ve come this far and you’re seriously complaining about how many hours they “told you” to study?? I studied 350 hrs yr, failed. This yr i studied 295 hrs, passed. I’ve known ppl who have failed studying 500 hrs, and some who have passed only w/ 200hrs of prep time. Your venting about the “300 hrs” issue will fall on deaf ears.

2 - you vented about the AM session, and sort of explained to them part of the reason that may have led to your lack of success on the AM session. You “ran out of time” and “missed 2 questions.” I am sorry you went through this, but if you poll the candidates who passed, they did not miss 2 questions, nor did they run out of time. This exemplifies that you did not know the AM material to the level the CFAI wants charterholders to know it. For those who were amply prepared, they were able to quickly write down succinct answers in a timely and coherent fashion. Running out of time and missing 2 questions shows the CFAI that said candidate does not know the material “enough.” I hope and trust you’ll take another stab at this next yr, and I would bet that you will be shocked when you review this yr’s AM session and practice through it, the level of information you needed to know compared to what your answers were in 2015.

Again, I am sorry to hear of your result, and I wish you all the best in 2016; however, your letter will most likely fall on deaf ears - at least it would if I were President.

In all seriousness, if it took you seven years to clear Level II then I think you should look no further than yourself when passing around blame. I mean, did it not dawn on you after maybe the fourth or fifth attempt that you clearly did not attain mastery of the curriculum?

You simply want to blame your failure on CFAI because it is extremely easy to do that. I’d highly suggest you be honest with yourself. Also, I am not sure how a disclosure of actual study time by the Institute would help you or any person that failed. 300 hours clearly is an estimate of the average time spent studying. Some people could study 200 hours and pass this exam while other people require three times as much time. It all depends on your background and dedication.

CFAilure, so how many times did you sit for level 3 again?

^this is his first

Christ this is exactly how I feel about this. You obviously didn’t know the AM material as well as I did because I passed with +70% in all but 4 questions. This is a pretty simple thing.

The email is:

Paul.Smith@cfainstitute.com

It’s from his concent.

You really cant be upset about the hours since its possible to pass with less. Speaking from experience. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be for you.