Lol, we didn’t engage in CFA porn.
Marc tips kept coming throughout exam day. Now I understand why he says ‘“Go See Marc!”. Was a difference maker.
Marc saved me. Biggest eye opener during the whole process: Kaplan Schweser cuts corners and is a joke for L3. Keep giving them your money if you want to fail year after year.
When the CFAI says that the entire curriculum is testable, they really, really really…mean it. Just take a look at old exams. The best way (not the only way) to tackle it then is to study from the curriculum. That’s what Marc does. So there are no short cuts, he doesn’t really tell you to focus in one area or the other, his strategy is collect as many points as possible to help you pass. It can be frustrating, I used Kaplan for 1 and 2, and sometimes you just want a summary… But on exam day, I was really prepared, nothing surprised me on the exam.
no you did not.
you never tried Adapt prep, Bloomberg, Mark Meldrum, Daren Miller, Fitch learning, grading by S2000.
In my opinion…
for level 2 : the best prep provider is Analyst Success (founded by Frank Stalla, later acquired by Wiley) & Richie Owen from Kaplan Schweser.
For level 1 certainly Peter Olinto is the best.
Guys, you don’t have to use Marc. You can use any other prep provider. But I can almost guarantee one thing: your chances of passing reduces significantly if you are not studying with a prep provider that is 100% focused on the curriculum. With the new readings, past paper practices becomes less relevant. And perhaps mocks will just be CFA psychometricians guessing which way the CFA MIGHT go. I would have paid 2k to get my life back and I’m glad I used Marc/LevelUp
I can vouch for Marc. 3rd time re-taker and finally passed this year after attending his bootcamp in Omaha.
Using Levelup is like applying Occam’s Razor to your prep plan. Knowing that he would cover all the bases of what I needed to know to pass the exam, I no longer had to worry about using this provider for ‘x’ or that provider for ‘y.’ As you all know, CFA prep is rife with rabbit holes that we’re all liable to go down. Marc’s simple plan of CFA material + Videos + Bootcamp keeps you on the straight and narrow.
If I would to do Levelup, how many hours per day/week do you think I would have to put in to cover all my basis before bootcamp? I am asking because if i would do Kaplan locally with them, they are a ‘in person’ course so they already have the hours per week planned up until the revision.
Let me know your thoughts
I used LevelUp online videos and Bootcamp. The good: I thought the online videos and accompanying slide book were well done and very helpful. The slide book is one of the best study tools I’ve seen across the three levels and the videos are excellent. The bad/needs improvement: The Bootcamp was not what I would call a CFA Bootcamp at all, it’s more like death by PowerPoint with a surprisingly small amount of interaction (almost none outside of IPS). Except for the IPS review, he basically just reads through the slides for four days during the Bootcamp, insults other providers/brags (taking away from time that could be teaching the material), and tells you how much hard work you must do before the exam. I get it, it’s 4 days to cover the entire curriculum so you basically must fly through the material (e.g. read through the slides), but that doesn’t make it helpful or a good use of time, in my opinion. That said, the IPS review is excellent.
I think LevelUp would be better off modeling the rest of the review session/Bootcamp off the IPS review – cover a handful of highly testable topics in depth and actually work problems. I think this is much “stickier” learning versus passively listening to someone read through PowerPoint Slides. I think Schweser may do this at their 3 and 5-day Bootcamps but I didn’t attend one, so I am not sure. You can’t do it all in 4 days and when you try to its too watered down and turns into the instructor reading from the slide deck with almost no interaction (aka death by PowerPoint).
I was also very surprised at the near constant self-promotion and Schweser/Mark Meldrum put-downs at the Bootcamp. Beyond just wasting class/study time (which is bad enough during crunch time) it came across as unprofessional to me. Aside from the IPS workshop and book of old exams sorted by topic, the bootcamp wasn’t a good use of my time – I can read the slide deck on my own since that’s basically what he does. Maybe other folks learn best by passively listening to 4 days of someone reading from PowerPoint for hours on end, but not me.
That said, I passed as a first timer and its largely because of his videos and slide deck are great for learning the curriculum – you see the big picture and also understand the minutiae (which is tested).
Also, if you do LevelUp, I’d make sure you save a couple months (yes at least 8 weeks) at the end for mock exams. My suggestions are CFAI (obviously), Schweser has a couple good ones – the downloadable/electronic ones where you can input your scores online after you take the paper test – and some lousy ones (the ones in their book of practice tests), and Mark Meldrum’s exams were top notch, I highly recommend those.
Everyone has his/her preferences, and these are my observations.
You guys are all silly. Sounds like Marc does a superb job making sure his students know theres no shortcuts and to study hard. He further hands out a binder of old exams to make sure you do them. Other instructors fail to slam it to your brains that the exam aint no joke.
Every post about him makes has a very similar element, work hard. Save the money, i can tell u to work hard.
sounds like those who passed are because they worked hard. You passed because of YOU
This thread looks like one of those weird ads they used to have in newspapers where the margin was filled with quotes from happy customers such as ”Peter, 25, from Boston, Mass”
We passed because of Both - ourselves + Marc. Time and hard work is Not enough to pass level 3, you need to know How to use that time. I took both Marc’s LevelUp and Kaplan, and the consensus is Kaplan is not good for level 3, but Marc is. I passed with a big margin and largely attribute my success to him.
I don’t completely agree with that 125mph. I think his slidebook is very helpful for learning and remembering (not memorizing the material) above and beyond what’s in the curriculum. For example, he has color pictures with sometimes funny, but relevant pictures that help you remember concepts. I remember he had a picture of a boxer getting smacked in the face next to a knock-out option - I’ll probably never forget that.
He certainly does tell you that there are no shortcuts.
FWIW, Pho6’s criticisms are entirely legitimate. It’s expensive, he spends loads of time reminding you that you were “smart” to buy his package even though you’re already a customer, and the fact that he only works IPS questions with you in class is a bit surprising as well. There was plenty of time for him to walk through at least a question or two from each section but instead we spent most of the bootcamp rapidly flipping through the slidebook, which you had presumably already seen if you watched the videos.
But take a look at my post history - not too long ago I was a naive Level 1 Candidate fumbling through the material, and I passed Level 3 on the first attempt in part thanks to Marc. 125mph is right - you can pass without him if you work hard, but you can also fail without him. Does anyone really want to do this twice?
Just got the Kaplan materials, but thinking of dropping their 3-day review for the Marc’s review. Any thoughts between the two courses? Would doing both be overkill?
It seems like Marc has requested to start a shout out thread. Anyways congratulations to all who have passed by using any provider or no provider at all. I will share my experience about LevelUp videos. I bought the videos in 2017 and realized that:
(1) IPS workshop walkthrough (which is considered as LevelUp flagship item) was not part of videos and If you want that you have to attend a 4 day bootcamp so more cost.
(2) Videos were unnecessary long (2.5 to 3 hours) so it was hard to concentrate
(3) Marc touches almost all the BBs and white text examples but most of the time he actually only touches them. He tells you what is in the BB but many time does not solve step by step and expects you to read. I wished Level 3 curriculum was so straight forward that I could understand with Marc style but unfortunately that was not the case for me.
(4) Marc provides a very colorful slidebook, but for Level 3 you have to make your own detailed notes so in the end that slidebook was of little value because in the presence of your own hand written detailed notes, who would have the time to review power point bullets to revise concepts closer to exam.
So having realized these early, I switched to another prep provide and passed on first attempt.
What I believe, people who only takes 4 day bootcamp and pass, already have done required studies before attending bootcamps otherwise a 4 day bootcamp cannot produce magic closer to exam. But definitely Marc is an experienced teacher and must be teaching some good points in bootcamps, however saying that bootcamp is the sole reason to pass may be an exaggeration.
Well, that much is obvious… The OP was a first time poster on AF lol…
Marc usually asks for referrals and/or positive feedback.
I used the $280 Mark Meldrum video package and $2,000 (excluding travel cost) Marc/LevelUp full package and really can not justify the 7x price for LevelUp…
I’ve also heard really good things from very happy candidates who used Mark Meldrum.
Different Mark