A letter I sent to CFAI President

So many things wrong with this…

“1. They don’t disclose the mininum pass rate, THEY SHOULD.” Does it really matter exactly what the MPS is? What’s the difference between “We regret to inform you that you failed” and “We regret to inform you that you failed with a score less than MPS of 68”? If you failed, it really doesn’t matter, and knowing what decile you are in is much more valuable than just being told "You made a 65 when MPS was 68 this year."

“2. They don’t give us back our graded exams, AM and PM, THEY SHOULD.” CFAI realizes that it would be very unwise to release graded AM exams because, inevitably, some (incorrect and partially correct) answers will get out to the public on forums such as these and misinformation will spread like wildfire. CFAI is wise enough to understand that controlling the release of information and the integrity of exam material is critical and I believe that dissemination of the AM exam with all correct answers, as they do, is the best procedure to benefit future exam takers.

"3. They don’t have an appeal process for the guidline answers, THEY SHOULD. They are NOT GOD. " Let’s assume they do this, and that all band 10 failures ask for an appeal (naturally), along with 5% of all failures that were over-confident or don’t understand how they scored lower in a retake. That is 1920 candidates this year that will be engaged in an appeals process that will need CFA charterholders to sacrifice countless hours to review an exam that has ALREADY BEEN GRADED BY MULTIPLE CHARTERHOLDERS. What a waste of time and resources and an unnecessary reason to substantially increase exam fees.

“4. They don’t change the 300 hours BS to ex 300-500hrs, THEY SHOULD.” Personally, I counted every hour that I studied for all 3 levels, and I studied 250 hours for Level I, 225 for Level III, and 220 hours for Level III. The use of an average is more reasonable because some candidates study much more, and SOME CANDIDATES STUDY MUCH LESS making 300-500 totally untrue

“5. They don’t have a candidate advisory support line, THEY SHOULD.” That’s what places like AF are for. That’s what professors and managers are for. That’s what family and friends are for. Ultimately, the CFA program is an individual journey and you need to be able to make your own decisions with confidence or you aren’t cut out for it. We don’t need people paid to sit by a phone and counsel candidates that have insecurities or just want to vent.

“6. They don’t have an option to have your AM paper regraded by a handwriting expert, THEY SHOULD.” Here’s an idea: Learn to manage your time effectively and WRITE LEGIBLY. If you are using bullet points and answering questions concisely and efficiently you should not have any issues with this whatsoever

Seriously. This is getting out of hand. CFAilure is a great troll.

I am damn serious.

+1

Although I agree with the prevalent opinion in here that this complaint letter is essentially a joke and a waste of time, I cannot agree that 300 hours is anything close to being a fair estimate.

I’m not saying you can’t pass the exams with under that amount of study time, but don’t try and tell me for example that someone can ACTUALLY read through the Level 2 curriculum (3500 pages or whatever) and learn that material, study it, memorize, etc, in 300 hours. It’s impossible. If you KNOW a majority of the concepts already, and thus don’t need to read certain sections or revise certain sections, fine. But no, they are the ones that give us 3500 pages of curriculum; it is not humanly possible for an intelligent person to read through that, answering all questions and then RETAINING IT (ie. you cannot just read through one time and expect to remember anything over 25% of the material) in 300 hours. Just no.

Dynamite Trolling effort

Why is it the CFAI’s responsibility to gather individual candidates’ experiences and then share them with prospective and current candidates? In fact, CFAI did give a survey and shared the results. You seem to take issue with the questions they asked and how they presented the findings. You’re allowed to have those grievances I suppose, but it’s not the CFAI’s responsibility to make surveys about candidate’s experiences. Frankly, candidates sharing their experiences is the purpose of AF and other CFA blogs.

Any candidate should take the time to research what this exam entails before they register. If they don’t, that’s bad analysis, and should probably face the consequences given what this exam covers to begin with.

Except for the fact that many people did just what you described as not being “humanly possible”. I, for instance, did not use any third-party study materials, read every single page in every single reading , and passed all three levels. I meticulously counted how many hours I spent preparing, and I studied 250 hours for Level 1, 225 for level 2, and 220 for level 3.

Someone is going to get killed in this thread, I just feel it.

Take it easy CFAilure: Волков бояться - в лес не ходиить.

for 1, you made no mention of any review, EOC questions, mocks, etc. and secondly, no offense but I don’t know you, your background, your methods of tracking hours, etc etc. For me, each reading in Level 2 took a good 3 hours or so to read the material, take in blue boxes/questions, EOCs, etc etc. That’s just 1st pass through. I think most candidates would be approaching 200 hours of time simply doing what I said on 1st pass through. And then mocks, questions, review, retention, it’s hard for me to fathom 220 hours, but maybe you were very familiar with the concepts prior to.

Don’t see the point of reading the book twice really… you can recall stuff by just doing questions.

I think it’s safe to say that by the CFAI saying it will take up to 300 hours of study time = studying for this test is a major time commitment

that should be enough, some people get it done in 200 some in 500. I have a son, I’m married, work full time, and value free time with friends and family. I started studying early and probably put in around 300 hours and passed. It was a major time commitment but I still budgeted time to do all the above things.

CFAilure I just don’t think your point/letter really has any merit but everyone is entitled to their own opinion and thoughts… That’s mine

Hm. I really can’t understand why you would even attempt this for as long as you have. Seriously dude… Tip my hat off for the effort, but… D**N… Oh, right, my point: Everyone that participates in the program does so willingly, so, as someone else commented before, if you don’t agree with the policies in place, then don’t participate.

…Ok, am I the only one who think it’s interesting that CFailure is giving up after 1 try at L3, after doing it 7 times for L2? Pardon if I missed something in the thread… :slight_smile:

Wellllllllll…

The more successful the Candidate or Charterholder is and the less study time he/she claims the less is his/her number of AF points and newer the account.

I have a word to social media people of cfai. your boss might be reading it. for the next crysis please prepare more fake users. make some comments from their name from time to time. it will look much better then, really.

I missed out 2 questions and passed

Personally I’ve had an account forever, just never commented if that was referring to me.

and isn’t Russia already in a “crysis” I heard a 1000 rubels can’t even buy a tube steak… Anyway enough with this thread for me. best of luck next year

For the people in the tank who do not hear.

The number of recommended hours is relevant.

Why?

Since if a potential candidate would know it is a full time program beforehand she perhaps will not register at all.

I understand why cfai is reluctant to disclose the number of study hours, less people would pay the fees but hey… do you believe in your own values, cfai?

The first principle that is explained on social media war seminar: never discuss a problem. discuss your opponent.

And sorry for the typos!

No offense taken at all. I just don’t think anyone should say that “Personally, the program took X hours for me to get through, which means that everyone else should have to take X number of hours at a minimum.” I am in my last semester of grad school and just passed Level III, have two years of retail brokerage experience and one year of M&A consulting experience. The total hours for each section included time to complete all questions at the end of each reading, as well as the mock exams and a 2-3 week review period.

As for my method of tracking hours, it was simple, I used my laptop for all note-taking and wrote when I started and finished each study session. At the end of each session, I added the amount of hours studied to the previous total, so it’s pretty much foolproof. I will make this concession though. If I was “studying” for three hours but spent a relatively small portion of time on my phone or email or reading news stories, I would only count 2.5 hours. So in a sense, I only counted time actually dedicated 100% to learning the curriculum, not all time sitting with a book in my lap daydreaming or devoting my attention elsewhere.

CFAFailure

I’m sorry you failed pal but you are whining.

Why? Because you’ve started this campaign because you failed. You pass, none of this happens.

This has everything to do with you not passing and nothing to do with transparency.

If I had failed, and you had passed, there’d be no letter to the CFAI…