> @Starving: What are you doing now? What are your > future goals/career path aspirations? Graduated from a state school in 2008 and joined a Chicago based commercial bank as a credit analyst. Got my formal credit training. But before I even got my feet wet the whole damn industry went to $hit. Next thing I knew deals dried up and entire teams were let go. Now I find myself in the workout group dealing with troubled loans. But my work doesn’t involve anything analytical. I am basically like a data entry guy who is supposed to look through documents and gather all the info and type them in the system. If that doesn’t sound bad enough, the damn data collection process is so broken and nobody wants to touch this junk. So basically me and 4 other grunts (all recent grad analysts) are just doing data entry 10 hrs a day and consistent cleaning up our prior work (our instructions are always ambiguous, conflicting, and sometimes downright nonsensical because nobody knows what is going on, as the result we are always asked to go back to clean up our works) Aight. Rant is over. I have been contemplate a PT MBA at Booth (the Chicago Business Fellows program). Took my GMAT (760), completed my essays and got all my recommenders lined up. But now I am have some second thoughts based that thread about PT MBA. For now, I will just go through my application and make a decision if I can get in.
^lol with a 760? are you kidding? You’re better off not even applying. No one will admit you with that;) PS I have a good friend that works in my bank’s workout group and his stories do not leave me envious. Although he does have much more hands on access than you. Which consequently makes me all the more sorry for you! I mean WTF are you doing sitting in a comm bank doing secretarial work with a 760 on the GMAT no less!?! Really puts my and FUNs’ b!tching in perspective. Best of luck to you as well, I have a feeling you need than either one of us.
FUNancialAnalyst Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That being said… like 54% of people pass… only > reason I passed was because I flat out dominated > the investment questions (the investment stuff on > the CFP is an absolute joke). > > I didn’t do a review course, I did get access to > some Qbank but didn’t really use it because I felt > like I needed to just cram and cram the material. > That being said… a month of studying a few hours > a day is plenty of tiime to pass. There are alot > of dumb financial planners out there. do you feel you only needed to study that much because you took the classes? i’m sitting for it in march without the classes since i have my cfa charter and it’s a damn lot of material and the schweser questions at the back of each sections are very specific. the investment section is easy as pie, but some of the tax and estate stuff is pure memorization and there’s a lot more than i expected. the 54% pass rate is confusing to me unless a) the questions on the exam are much easier and more general and/or b) the average passing score is really low. any insight?
I took the classes while studying for the CFA… so some classes I actually studies for the CFA during class. There is alot of memorization required… there are some easy questions and some difficult questions… I think the average passing score is lower than the CFA. I should note that I work in the industry so I’ve been exposed to some of the estate planning, retirement benefits, and tax stuff. If you’re going to challenge for it with the CFA… 4 weeks might not be enough… but certainly doable… if its a legitamite 4 weeks… but might as well spend an extra month getting used to the material and starting to memorize some stuff.
$tarving_Banker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > If I were you, I would quit that dead end job and go to business school full time. Based on your GMAT score alone, you probably have a shot at some decent places. Don’t sit around and wait for your company to rescue your career - that almost never happens.
FUNancialAnalyst Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I took the classes while studying for the CFA… > so some classes I actually studies for the CFA > during class. There is alot of memorization > required… there are some easy questions and some > difficult questions… I think the average passing > score is lower than the CFA. > > I should note that I work in the industry so I’ve > been exposed to some of the estate planning, > retirement benefits, and tax stuff. > > If you’re going to challenge for it with the > CFA… 4 weeks might not be enough… but > certainly doable… if its a legitamite 4 > weeks… but might as well spend an extra month > getting used to the material and starting to > memorize some stuff. thanks for the info. i’ve been exposed to a legit amount of estate planning, etc, i guess my question is how specific do they get? i.e. what % of the questions are “paul has X salary, his medical expenses are X, who much is medical expense deduction” style questions? the schweser books make it seem like most of the questions are this specific rather than “what should paul do” style questions.
The challenging questions are definitely that specific. And closer to the "Paul has x salary, medical expenses are x, etc… Alot of the questions were very hard… like I said… I think the percentage needed to pass must be fairly low. It is alot of material and alot of memorization… CFA you could be analytical and deduce the right answer often… not the case with the CFP. I found the key is to memorize the tricks… so even if you don’t know the exact rule… when you see a question you can deduce what the trick they’re trying to get you with. Find the wrong answer and adjust it by the “trick” to get the right answer. If you putting in this much effort looking for info. you’ll prob be fine. Study for it like one of the CFA exams. CFP exam is an exam that’s very easy to underestimate… if you put in enought tiime and effort you’ll be fine.
I passed the CFP exam before I started sitting for the CFA exams. I agree with most of what FUNancialAnalyst said. It is comparable to level I, but less mechanical. The estate stuff can get a little complex and some of the insurance information is downright brutally boring. Sadly most clients recognize the CFP and not the CFA on my card.
I’ve helped review and write questions for the CFP exam and yes, they do get really specific on the tax and estate planning sections. Last round that I edited, I recommended a lot of questions be thrown out because of the recent tax law changes.