I’m thinking about getting my MBA while going for the CFA Charter. Anyone have any experience with this? Or advice? I work full time and I’m taking the Level I exam in June 09. Would this be too much at one time, do you think? I appreciate anyone’s opinion.
I don’t think this would be advisable. If you can do it somehow you are the man.
I have been doing masters, cfa level 3 and work full time. it is doable. Step up
How about a full time MBA and CFA?
I would think full time MBA and CFA would be easier. All you have to worry about is studying. More manageable.
Ok. I am enrolled for a full time MBA program this fall. I take Level 2 in June. While I plan on trying regardless, I don’t know if it will work out well to take L3 after my first year.
Try to take it right after you’re done with the MBA. Worked for me. If your electives are finance focused they’ll prep you well for the exam.
I have been in the masters program for 3 years. I graduate in May this year. It is doable
The problem for me is that the cfa exam dates are always the weekend before or the weekend after finals and I simply cannot study for all of that at the same time. Other than that one complication, its easier to do them at the same time in many ways (lots of overlap w/ core courses, etc).
I am doing a part time MBA and matching it up with the CFA. It’s been really helpful since the first half of my MBA courses mostly overlapped with Level 1, which made it a breeze. I’m planning on taking some specific higher level finance courses to match up with L2. I know some people who completed the CFA during a full-time program too, but that sounds like a lot of work to me!
I’m thinking about taking a shot at GMAT and Level 2 this june. What’s everyone’s thoughts on that? How hard is the GMAT, and how much time would you recommend I put into it? I’ve got a good finance background (no work experience, just college education, cleared Level 1 in Dec.) so does anyone think this is doable? Cheers.
It works like a synergy and should be manageable.
The GMAT has got nothing to do with finance or business per se. The GMAT’s a computer adaptive test so it’s much more a game of test prep than the CFA which is more a knowledge based exam. If you’re asking about how much overlap there is, the answer is not much. The GMAT would be nearly impossible just walking in off the street but if you spend the time and effort to learn to game the test it’s quite possible for almost anyone mildly intelligent to put up a monster score. The most important part is to make sure that you get the first half dozen or questions right on each section because the test “adapts” you to the advanced question track where you can actually miss more questions and yet end up with a much higher score than an easy tracker who gets more questions right. As I understand it’s pretty much impossible to score above 600 unless you get on the advanced question tract.
Cheers Paul, I’m aware that there’s practically no overlap between the CFA and GMAT, I just wanted an overview of what I should expect on the GMAT exam. Have you taken the GMAT by any chance? I’m aiming for a 700+ score because I’ve heard that’s a good score for B-Schools applications (ambitious? maybe… but I’m still gonna try)
Yeah I took it about 4 or 5 years ago and just graduated from b-school last summer. I only took it once and my score was about 100 points shy of 700+ but I was only applying to the evening program of a border line tier-I school so I knew my score wasn’t a big enough deal to sink a lot of time, money, and effort in it. I bought a Kaplan book, read it, and did some of the practice problems but there’s classes and the whole nine yards of course. The evening program stats don’t count in the rankings so the GMAT’s pretty much a technicality. To get into to a top 10 or 20 school’s full time program you probably need around a 700, all else equal, which is entirely doable. What really sucks about the GMAT is that after you finish, you get to decide on the spot whether or not you want it graded. If you say no it doesn’t get scored and you just took it for fun and paid $300-$400 for the morning of joy. If you say yes it gets graded, immediately forwarded to the school(s) you tell them you’re applying to, and posted to your record with the GMAT corp. Schools obviously like to see high scores but they frown on more than 2 or 3 attempts because they know the exam’s game-able.