Cool, thanks for the feedback. I thought his videos for L2 were good too, just wanted to check the feedback on L3. Plenty of providers do well on a level, and mess up another.
Thank for the feedback on the grading service and on MM. Reassuring!
Yes, I’d have to give credit to MM that he is responsible when it comes to covering the curriculum, he also breaks down difficult concepts in seminars, and solves EOC, in L2 he made a separate video for JUST ONE EOC question hat was confusing to a lot of candidates! I don’t think any provider does that. Even though I didn’t watch most of the seminar videos and EOC as i didn’t have time, I appreciate that he provided them.
Not advocating for or against here, as I never used MM materials or Bill’s mocks throughout the program - just presenting facts.
I did find Meldrum’s 2009 dissertation for those curious: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:52014
He essentially reasons that patent volumes are correlated with business cycles as a byproduct of innovation. Given the subject matter and the composition of his committee I would venture to say MM’s doctorate is either in Management, Economics or a specialty thereof.
lets just say some of us lucked out if we used MM mocks made & graded by Bill - and passed this year. Your mocks were of high quality. They were hard though haha
Taking no sides here. I love both MM & s2000, highly recommend both of their services and am grateful to have benefited from their knowledge and expertise, especially at levels 2 and 3.
Those mocks last (this?) year were the highest quality you could possibly get in practice essays
You’re both very kind.
Thank you.
the mocks you wrote this year for MM were top notch…i was surprised that MM didn’t write his own given the quality of his II & III videos…
When I took level2, I emailed MM about mocks. .I told him I had IFT already, he said dont bother… his are from IFT.
Then come level 3, I started reading about MM’s mocks being outsourced by bill.
I beleive MM likes to outsource the mocks part of his course.
Too sad that the code and standard of ethics only apply to the ‘covered’ members and candidates. I agree with 125. I only happened to watch couple of vids of Meldrum on YouTube with a fat cat on his lap. Subsequent vids had the cat disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to the cat.
Somebody mentioned his phD in Finance…well that is how legends are created, I suppose.
Was watching Tears for Fears “Everybody wants to rule the world”…great number. An original blast from the past!
One factor that helps write good exam questions – at least for me – is grading mock exams taken my candidates. Seeing how candidates interpret questions and interpret in information given in vignettes was invaluable to me. It was a great help in writing vignettes and questions that were not subject to misinterpretation (or, at least, had minimal probability of being misinterpreted).
I do not know how much experience Dr. Meldrum has in grading Level III morning session mock exams. Without that, perhaps he felt unequal to the task.
Hi Bill, you have great website with content, why don’t you offer your written mocks along with grading session on your website? Just curious
I have to be careful here because I’m not a full-blown paid advertiser. Look for a PM.
Hypothetically, how do you feel about someone with both a PhD and a CFA charter? Asking for…a friend… 
Oh the drama!
im the one who said he had a PhD in finance. I said that because there was another thread where MM was in a tiff with CEO10k over him not having the charter. He made some comment about cognac and aging fine wine, or something like that. I don’t remember or care to look at the history. Anyways, I took that as him indicating that his PhD trumped the charter. I had (mistakenly, it seems) assumed that someone with a PhD in an unrelated field would not make that comment.
Either way he knows his shit. The attitude and ego thing appears to come with the territory. Dog eat dog world in the land of CFA prep providers.
Tell your friend that I said, “Awesome possum!”
If I ever get two seconds to rub together, I’d like to go back to school and finish my PhD in mathematics. UC Davis would be the ideal place to do that, as there are two professors there who specialize in the area I’d like to study: knot theory.
If there is something that I don’t like about MM, it is that he has a huge ego, it does appear in the videos and in the way he responds to questions from candidates, a bit of cockiness shows. But I guess since I am not going to marry him and only going to use his service, I may as well ignore that.
That’s pretty common in the CFA community… speaking from experience here…
I’ve heard that there exceptions to this general rule, though I cannot come up with a concrete example off the top of my head.
Nice! I actually don’t know anyone that does knot theory themselves. I had a former student who was interested in it but I don’t know if she ever stuck with it or not. It is definitely nice getting a PhD when you’re already set in the world. Pretty much my entire time in graduate school I was worried about everything, from what my future would look like to whether or not I could afford food. I think at one point my bank account got down to $14. Those were the Top Ramen days…
Are you referring to yourself? Just kidding lol.
Believe it or not, it is common in all of these professional communities and not just the CFA’s. I am a Chartered Accountant and many people take a lot of pride in being one (in a silly manner), CFA charterholders are no different etc…etc… It is a huge mistake though, I KNOW that not everyone can achieve these designation, that it takes a lot of hard work, stamina, and at least avg level intelligence, but achieving them (or higher degrees like Mark’s PhD) is not necessarily an indication of anything other than being able to work hard. I’ve known talented and very smart people who have a simple Bachelor’s degree.