I passed L3 this year and am about 10 months shy of 48 months of work experience. I was under the impression that I could go through the process of applying for regular membership at this stage; submit my references, submit my work experience for approval, and hen once that all was okay, I’d be good to go in ten months time. I was speaking to a CFA rep once this morning on the phone who confirmed to me that this is in fact the process I can do. I called a second time about another issue and different rep told me that this in fact isn’t the case, and now I can’t submit my work experience on their site for evaluation/approval until I’ve “hit” the full 48 months, and then I can apply for membership and my work experience, and the other aspects of my application will be evaluated. He did give me a CFA email address however that I can send my work experience description to, and they will analyze it and tell me whether it will “likely” be approved or not, although this wouldn’t be a definitive answer.
Anyone else deal with this? Is this a new process? I’ll not be pleased if I submit my experince to this email address and they say I’ll likely be approved and then it gets turned down when I officially apply for membership.
I applied last year. The upside is that you don’t have to worry about finding sponsors and you’ll get a response on whether or not your work experience is considered applicable. The downside is that you still won’t get to use the letters and have to pay the membership fees. In addition, once you reach 48 months you will have to apply for a membership upgrade. The process is quicker but they will still perform the work experience and society reviews.
You can’t apply for regular membership in advance… BUT you can apply for affiliate membership. The application process is generally the same, except you click “affiliate” and you will be granted affiliate society membership with pretty much all the same perks. You’ll get national and local society membership out of the way and submit your two references. They’ll approve whatever applicable work experience you submit (38 months). In 10 months when you hit your full membership requirement, you simply click submit for membership upgrade or whatever, and they look at your application then upgrade your membership. This is what I did, I believe it streamlines the process.
Great thanks, that’s good to hear and the way I’ll proceed. Regarding the refernce checks if I proceed this way, it sounds like they’ll have to be contacted at this stage (affiliate membership), but will they be contacted again a second time when I apply for “regular” membership?
I’m in the same boat. I was just going to wait 5-6 months until I have the 48 months of worp exp.
I think the regular membership rate is reduced around April anyways. I figured the approval process won’t take long in April, unlike right after the exams. The posts above sound good/efficient, but I think its pointless to pay for affliate then regular, when you can’t use the designation.
And as a follow up to this, if I apply as an affiliate member, it looks like I’d have to pay the membership dues (which would actually, for this period, go through June 30 2013). And then once I get the full work experience of 48 months, I’d have to apply to become a regular member and pay dues again. I wonder if applying at this stage as an affiliate member is worth it considering an year of extra dues, or maybe just wait until I get the full 48 months then just apply as a reg member?
I too applied when I was at 41 months of work experience, with all three levels passed. As said above, the downside is you start paying dues sooner. The upside is you know whether your work experience is acceptable and properly presented and you have you sponsors taken care of etc. That way, when you hit 48 months it is pretty easy. As said though, your work experience will still get re-reviewed by the institute and then the local society.
I applied for regular membership at the end of July. The insitute review and work experience approval took about one week. The society review took a little longer, but today I recieved the email I have been dreaming about for so long…
To OP, if your company is paying the dues, you might as well get the feedback on your WP. If you poke around a bit on AF, you’ll see that how you word your WP can make a difference, so getting it out of the way sooner rather than later could be a big plus.
I’ve never heard of dues being reduced in April, although it would make sense because all memberships expire in June regardless of when you join and there is no pro-rating (unless of course the April discount is correct).