I remember back in undergrad one of our professors (PhD finance with side job as portfolio manager) was encouraging students to do the CFA program. One student asked him if he had his charter and he said that it would be a waste of his time and money and that he could walk in and pass all three levels first try without opening any of the books. Thoughts on this?
Complete BS. I probably couldn’t even pass my grade school exams if I went back now without any preparation whatsoever.
It’s not even about studying the books, no exam can be passed without any prep, no matter how small. The prof might indeed have all the knowledge but, without doing a practice paper or at least a couple sample questions, he has no idea what to expect on the exam and will fail.
I had a professor who took the exams. He said that he was able to score highly enough on every section to pass the tests with the exception of ethics. He took a few practice tests to get a feel for the question format, but was able to pass with minimal effort. Minimal effort is different than being able to pass without any preparation, however.
I’d be skeptical. I’ve worked with someone that could probably give a PHD in finance a run for the money by virtue of tacit experience, they had to postpone writing level 3 because they didn’t ‘have nearly enough time to study’. Like, didn’t even consider taking a shot at it, and they’re undoubtedly one of the most intelectually gifted people i’ve ever met
If that is the case, he would have passed all three already. Silly. The issue is not do you have a chance to pass, more do you have a good chance. I probably have a 33% chance of passing Level 1 again right now. But if I’m going to devote time and money, I would prefer 75% or better. And I definitely don’t want to deal with it again next year. If your odds are low, you could be looking at a ten year process. No thanks.
I actually ran into one of my undergrad portfolio analysis PhD professors at the exam center last year. I was sitting for L1, he was sitting for L2. He explicitly said he was scared to death of the exam because he had not studied nearly enough because of research he was doing. Needless to say, come results day, he did not get the “Congratulations! We are very pleased to inform you…” emails.