Does this guy know how to party or what?
I will comfortably say that the CFA exams are up there with the hardest tests I’ve ever taken, but it’s not obviously the hardest unless we specify better what it means to be hard. For example, there are things like “% of population that can pass, given ample time to study”, there’s “quantity of material required to study to have a decent chance of passing,” there’s “conditions of the test room (i.e. the endurance to do this over 6 hours).”
My qualifying exams were hard too, but I only did them once rather than three times, and I was able to learn the material and get done with them in less time than the CFA.
Some undergrad tests of mine were more terrifying, but I doubt they were harder in terms of breadth of materials, etc…
But it’s just ridiculous to say flat out “it’s the hardest test you’ll ever take,” since it’s almost guaranteed that someone can come up with a harder exam out there. Heck, for me, the Marine recruitment test (the physical ones) are probably way harder than the CFA. I’m pretty sure that actuarial exams are also harder.
At best, it’s “the hardest exam series that *most* of the test-takers will ever take.”
^I will concede that the self directed nature and the fact that you don’t get interim tests for the CFA gives it a notch in its column compared to grad school qualifying exams. Still, thinking back to mine, the material was much more in depth and the breadth was comparable - basically anything that was taught at any point in the program was fair game.
Are you on crack? Take 100 twenty-five year old Americas at random and you’d be lucky to have five that would pass the exams with 500 hours of study for each level. 50 would have an almost zero chance even with a team of experts helping them work toward each level for a solid year.
I think you are overestimating the general population’s ability… Less than 20% of people that start the program finish… And I would argue that a large percentage of the candidate pool is probably on the more educated side of the spectrum.
I do agree that the amount of study time necessary to pass isn’t the only factor in determining difficulty, but it’s a major factor. Also, what is your definition of “difficult”? To just pass the exam or fully understand the material? If the former, I would say CFA exams are much more difficult as curves in college exams often only require you score in the 30%'s to pass. If you’re talking concept by concept fully understanding the materal, then sure some STEM college course material is more difficult. I don’t think anyone is arguing that though…
And the other half is rote?
It does seem that if CFA exams are not as hard as college exams, then you should see college graduates passing the CFA exams in very high numbers - after all, they’ve demonstrated by graduating college that they can handle more difficult material (because we’re presuming for argument than undergrad exams are harder), the perceived value of passing is high to those who take the exams (so there is motivation to study), and you must have a college degree just to be able to sit for the exams (with an exception for those who have work experience in the field, but I’ll venture that the percent who use that way to sign up are very few).
So if undergrad exams are harder, we should see pass rates for L1 that are far higher than we observe, not to mention L2 and L3. The fact that we don’t suggests that most undergrad exams are not harder.
Ohai is an Asian freak of nature. Dont compare yourself to him.
what this whole discussion boils down to is that my mother was right, I am a genius.
The CFA exams are not rocket science by any means, but the dedication required and huge sacrifices make it difficult
The winner take all bit of it adds to it as well. My GF is friends with a number of people who went to Pharmacy school and when talking to me about my exam (as they have known other friends who have taken it to varying levels of success) the thing that sticks out to them is you either pass or fail after the long amount of time studying. Unlike your semester at school where maybe you had a really tough class and failed, but you at least had the others you passed and it wasnt a complete waste.
Who knows though im pretty fried from the last few weeks of studying I am ready for this years fun to be over
btw congrats on passing bchad in terms of total AF points. when did this happen? i would of expected a congratulatory thread from Chad.S
I belive that it all really depends on your skill sets and aptitude on certain subject matters.
I passed L1 and L2 on first attempts and scored better than 70 on all topics in L2. Also thought L3 was fairly easy having just wrote it. So, I agree with many of the posters above that CFA exams are definitely not one of the toughest exams, because I am sure that I would be challenged to score even in the 50 percentile on an MCAT if I had to write it after studying for 4 months part time.
Having said that, I have a younger brother who scored 98 percentile on his MCAT a few years ago (i think 38S or something like that) and will be starting his residency this year. Explaining to him about duration / convexity of bonds, cash flow statements, equity valuation or derivatives is not the easiest and honestly, I don’t think the topics interest him all that much. He’s definitely smarter than me, but it’s hard to say whether he would pass L1 after studying part time for 4 months.
So… it is really a moot point. People have different talents and interests, with interest being important because I find it is hard to work at something when I am not interested in the topic. What I can say for certainty is CFA charter is an achievement and it has some real value in terms of making yourself more employable or negotiating a better comp.