I have two friends at the office who want to sit for both Level 1 of the FRM and Level 2 of the CFA exams in May and June, respectively. They work full time and travel on business a few times per month.
Having taken these exams, I told them that both exams are tough and require a substantial amount of time to prepare (at least 300 hours each). It is a tough proposition. I told them to concentrate on the CFA in June and FRM in November, but they still think they can do it if they start to study now.
If you have taken both of these exams together, can you please share your thoughts about the preparation time and provide any suggestions? I will pass along to them your experience with this crazy idea.
I sat CFA I in June, Both FRM 1 and 2 in November and will sit CFA 2 this June. Honestly I’m not even convinced that sitting FRM 1 and 2 together is that good an idea, I passed but would have got better marks doing them separately. I just wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible I assume this is you frineds reasoning too. Part 1 of the FRM is the calculatio intensive part and has a large overlap with CFA I and 2. So it is doable, however I think you need to be entirely focused on an exam in order to pass. The FRM is 2 weeks before the CFA. So your focus will be on Fixed Income Quant Methods, Derivatives, and the other FRM part 1 stuff. In the next 2 weeks you need to quickly pick up the Equity, Financial Statements, Corpo Finance and other CFA pieces. I think it’s quite a risk but obviously depends on the individual Financial Statments is my weak point and I would not have liked to focus eslewhere to do the FRM 2 weeks before, but if you weakness is the FRM style material this might work well. From my perspective tif the FRM exam had been after the CFA i think this would be an easier proposition. But your big risk is missing the CFA, I think they would be better to concentrate on the CFA and sit both FRM 1 and 2 in November, as there’s overlap between the CFA 2 and the FRM 1 and 2. Certainly I might have found sitting the 2 together easier had I already sat the CFA 2.
You warned your colleagues, and they decided to ignore your advice. If they under 18 years old you can tell their mummy, otherwise just let them do it their way (and fail at least one of the two exams). Let us know how it ended…
