Rex ma’ boy, nice. I’ll take a look at IFT’s offerings per your recommendation.
Curious to see if people find the videos truly different/helpful for L3. Passed L1 in Dec 16/ L2 June 17, never used the videos. My strategy was reading CFAI, doing EOCs/BBs and then KS mocks/qbank/random practice throughout the books. It seems the material is pretty different for L3, as a lot of the content in 1/2 are more relevant to my current job.
For L3, use CFAI textbooks.
I used Wiley to pass L2 in 2017. I also found a lot of mistakes and spent some valuable time letting Wiley know about them. They never updated their errata and never responded to me. I do give Wiley’s videos credit for me passing. Olinto is great and Shajani is okay but DeGraaf is horrible. Any video section Olinto led I got above 70% on the exam. Any video section DeGraaf was heavily involved in i got below 50%. Just skip his video sections if you use Wiley.
I’m an audio visual learner and don’t do well when I have to rely on just the books. Now I have to figure out who has the best videos for L3. I wish Olinto did a set of videos for L3.
Agreed about mistakes in their material, don’t agree though about DeGraaf. His lecture on fixed income are what I attribute getting >70% on that section of the exam.
I’m glad DeGraaf worked for you. He really didn’t work for me. I hope Miller does most of Wiley’s L3 videos. Unless Olinto wants to. Now I’m just going to wait until August 9th and hopefully everybody that passed will let us know what the best prep provider was this year for L3. The above responses have me leaning towards LevelUp.
I’m doing Levelup. I like Marc’s attitude and his videos. I thought about other providers, but I need a provider who specializes in level 3 and teaches how to answer the AM questions properly.
I don’t believe Olinto will be doing any of the lecture videos. If I’m not mistaken, he’s only ever sat for (and passed) the L1 and L2 exam (presumably to just be able to lecture on that material specifically). LevelUp is what I’m looking at too!
How did it go? I am looking right now to make the LIII decision.
I ended up studying with Kaplan materials for the core reading and then supplemented with the actual curriculum, all BBPs and EOCs of course. I’ll let you know how that decision went in about 14 days 
did you end up passing on Level Up strictly due to price? Just curious as I’m strongly considering Marc’s videos.
same quetion
Price definitely played a big role. That and I just heard good things about Kaplan. For what it’s worth, I believe Kaplan prepared me well. Again, hopefully I can report that as being a fact in two weeks.
Last Year I studied with Wiley. By far Miller is an excellent teacher in terms of communication and style, however the exam was much harder for which I strongly believe that Wiley is not enough. No BB coverage by the way.
This year I started with Level Up video series. Marc is an excellent guy and very helpful but honestly I felt that the videos are just long version of boot camp wherein Marc touches everything in the curriculum but I could not develop the concepts and confidence necessary to clear the exam. However the Slide Book and Focus Material book are out of this world.
Well, in terms of content coverage and details which IFT covers in its videos is unmatched. He actually solves almost every important blue box with you rather than just touching and explaining what is the BB is all about. I hope I have done enough in the exam but IFT is Highly recommended.
I hope this helps.
CFA III - Wiley Silver - Video Lecturers Ethics - Darren DeGraff Behavioral Finance - Darren Miller Private Wealth Mgmt - Darren Miller Economics - Darren Miller Asset Allocation - Darren Miller Fixed Income - Ian Rakita Equity - Jim Marrone Alternatives - Jim Marrone Risk Mgmt, Trading, GIPS - Jim Marrone
Jim Marrone and Daren Miller are good.
Ian and DeGraff are not that great
I was band 10 in 2017 due to poor AM time management. I used Wiley that year and found it to be passable, but not as good as their Level II material. I agree with the other posts that Wiley needs refinement and drifts away from CFA in places, which is unacceptable at level III. There is no room for error, everyone sitting for the exam knows what they’re doing.
This year I used IFT and paid extra for their AM grading service. We’ll see in week and a half, but I found IFT’s material to be more inline with CFA than Wiley. IFT’s tips of how to answer AM questions are great and will give you a good idea on exactly what you need to write to get points and not waste time. CFA/IFT combined give you a ton of practice mocks, EOC and blue box questions for practice, which seems to be the recommended approach to prepare for the beast that is AM.
I had a friend who took the Level up class in-person. We compared notes and there seemed to be a fair level of overlap in material and approach. IFT seems to be the best overall prep provider for the time/money.
Completely agree with high points for IFT.
If there is anything that *can* substitute for reading the curriculum, it is IFT. Arif goes through almost all of it, solves the blue boxes that are most relevant by hand on the video, and I found him a little funny too.
For me personally, the only thing I would say is that for me to be able to listen to his videos, I have to put in 1.3x speed if the topic was difficult, and 1.7x if the topic was not as difficult. I think there were a couple of readings where I watched the videos at 1x speed (for one section I think I went down to 0.9x speed!).
I have not tried Mark Meldrum but I am hearing a lot of good things from users on L2 board mostly and some even on L3 board.
I hope I don’t have to find out how good his lectures are 
Everyone who uses MM really likes him and thinks he does a great job. I’ve used Schweser at all three levels. It has some holes but I also review CFA questions to help bridge any gaps. I don’t have any reason to believe the combination of more brief chapters and more simplistic definitions/looking formulas from Schweser couldn’t get you over the finish line.
Hi, May I ask which AM grading service you use this year ? Do you have any link or name of the package? Thanks.