Personally, I just got my books and will be starting this weekend, albeit slowly. Long hours at work plus drinks on the off nights (usually work-related) mean I can’t expect to do any week night studying, so I’ll start with one day a weekend during the fall (probably Saturdays with Sundays reserved for football obviously.) I expect to have gotten through all the readings once by the holidays, at which point I’ll start ramping up with practice questions, live course starting mid-Jan, and full weekends devoted to studying post-Super Bowl (or, let’s be real, post the inevitable devastating Jets elimination from playoff contention)
L1 was a huge cram sesh in May and I have thoroughly learned my lesson
I will echo the start early camp. I started mid October and felt like I could read on what days I wanted. On the days I didn’t feel like it, I didn’t. Done reading and all EOC and BB first week in April. Mocks and review from that day on. Last 3 months were intense but I liked that I already had the whole read under my belt. If you have tons of free time, start later. If not, start early.
Only you can decide how soon or how late is good for you to study in order to pass on first attempt. I have started studying for level 2 as soon as I got my results for level 1. I would prefer to spend more time in studying and absorbing the information rather than starting late.
Im starting 12/1. Thats plenty of time in my opinion. When i failed last june i started in early-mid january, and frankly…that was enough time as well.
my failing was not result of the amount of time i studied, but more the way that i studied (too much reading not enough practice).
I suggest reading and highlighting the material two times over. in this time you also make flashcards for every formula (I counted 233 of them, but realistically there are only like 150 that you NEED to know). DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT save flashcard memorization till May. memorzie as you go along. as much as people say the exam is more difficult than simply plug and chug, at least 8-12 of the 120 questions on the exam will INDEED BE simple plug and chug. need to nail those easy points.
starting mid April, “mock till you drop” and youll be fine. pretty confident heading into this year due to how close a band 9 is (5-6 questions)
Recommend starting in fall for sure. It was hard to get seriously into studying till New Year’s, but having a base from the fall helped a tonne.
Mistake I made was to do FRA and Equity in the fall. If I could do it over, I’d have read through everything (every single reading – even the easy ones!) in the fall lightly, and then done a second, deeper pass in Jan-Feb.
I aimed to finished all readings and all EOCs by March 5, which I hit. Finishing that early was crucial for me, as I ended up needing 2 more deep passes of the toughest Fixed Income and FRA readings to really get those.
But you are right, I studied for over six months and just felt i still needed far more time to prepare, especially in the panic May. Anyway, I suggest to make your own notes, like the final quick sheet produced by Schweser so that you can memorize as much as possible. Mine clearly jotted down formulas, concepts, situations that they should be applied / not applied.
Another advice is to focus on the key topics (FR&A, Equity, Fixed income) due to their important weights in the exam.
I’ve already started; plan at this stage is to finish reading the CFAI books by November (focusing mostly on understanding at a high level the concepts that are covered) then picking up Schweser and going through the lot again, with the focus on proper comprehension and smashing the BB/EOC/Topic Test questions etc.
Note that a big part of the long lead time is that I did L1 last December so it’s been a while since I’ve sunk my teeth into CFA materials and want to make sure I properly identify any particularly weak areas.
