I went to Omaha last year and can only recommend it despite the high cost. Sure, $1,200 isn’t easy to cough up for 4 days but quite frankly it was well worth it considering that I am not going through L3 again this year. Marc’s materials and method of teaching are top notch, and I can definitely attest to him being more lively and outspoken than in the Schweser videos.
For those who have been to the bootcamp, can you please (1) speak more to the materials (i.e., provide more detail on what was provided and your perceived value of the materials) and (2) now that you’ve gone through the bootcamp, how has your plan for the last month of studying changed (if at all)?
I’m going to the NYC bootcamp later this week and am very anxious. Hoping its a great four days!
Yes, I think the materials are very very helpful. You’ll see.
I’ll speak to your second question as I believe the first question has been answered in detail; although I will tell you that the material is worth its weight in gold, in my humble opinion.
I can’t say that my game plan changed drastically after attending Bootcamp as I had originally planned to devote the last month predominantly to mocks and review; however, with Marc’s material and his advice I definitely had more clarity and focus in those last crucial weeks.
No doubt you will enjoy those four (long and exhausting) days and come out with a boost in confidence. Best of luck!
thank you, sir!
I had Marc LeFebvre at the Schwesser CFA Level II class in Dallas in 2013, and was not impressed. He is a really nice guy, but I thought he mostly covered the topics at 30,000 feet, well above the detail needed to actually do well on the exam. He also didn’t spend nearly enough time having us work through practice questions. It was more of a very fast, high level lecture. For some topics the review was ok, but for too many of the topics it just wasn’t helpful or as carefully/precisely presented as I would have preferred, and with less class member involvement than I think is necessary to help class participants prepare for the exam. I actually flew home Wednesday and used the Thurs-Fri that I would have been in class to study on my own. I ended up passing with flying colors, but the Dallas review course for Level 2 was not very helpful.
For Level 3, I heard that the class could be quite helpful, and despite my experience at Level 2, I decided to give it a try. I took the Schwesser Dallas 5-day course as well, and had a much better experience. The primary instructor was Dr. Greg Filbeck out of Penn St, and he was fantastic. He knew the material backwards and forward, knew which years in the past certain topics had been tested on the exam (he actually had statistics for how often certain subjects had been tested!), and was excellent at helping us focus in on the most important areas to focus on during the final weeks of our study. We did LOTS of examples of different kinds of questions during the review course, and he seemed to focus on areas that were mostly likely to be tested. Dr. Filbeck did a great job of helping us “stay in the fairway” of the material, and not get lost in the rough, or even worse, under a rock in the stream. Dr. Filbeck is very logical and precise in his explainations, and helped to clarify a number of topics that were a bit fuzzy for me going into the review. One note about the Dallas 5-day last year: Dr. Filbeck only taught about 3 days of the class. The other two days were split between two instructors. One of the two other instructors was pretty good, though not in Dr. Filbeck’s league, and the other was pretty weak, IMHO.
I can’t say enough about Dr. Filbeck’s review for Level 3. I had been through all of the material when I arrived for the review, and had even taken some practice exams, but Dr. Filbeck helped me get the material down more solidly, clarified some fuzzy concepts, helped me focus on the right areas the last month, and in the end, helped get me over the finish line. From my scores, it looked like a passed - with room to spare. If you can get Dr. Filbeck as an instructor, count yourself fortunate. Good luck on the exam.
Yeah, I was in that Schweser Level 3 review course last year. Filbeck was awesome, the other guys were a let down in comparison. I was probably behind where I needed to be when I went to that review course last year. It helped me catch up a great deal but I still wasn’t able to get over the hump. I feel much better prepared heading into the review course this year and am hoping I get an even bigger surge from this than I did the Schweser course last year.
Also, bump for people coming out of this weekend’s course.
+BUMP
…now that its wrapped up in NY
Do you have a review lilJamieDimon? I thought you mentioned you were going to the NYC review?
I’m finally going to his session this weekend in Omaha so I’ll provide a recap for anyone still interested at that time.
I found the 4 days with Marc to be very beneficial. I’m very glad I attended the bootcamp. I do wish, however, that it was offered in NYC earlier (e.g., early to mid-April). So many of us were tackling L3 with Schweser and after leaving his bootcamp I realized that I needed to delve deeper into the curriculum, which of course can be very time consuming. His materials are great. His knowledge of the curriculum and the exam is phenomenal. Truly impressive. I would recommend it strongly for anyone still contemplating attending.
I echo those sentiments lilJamieDimon.
So what is the prescription coming out of the review course to be ready in a month? Anything you would have done in the week leading up to the bootcamp to be more prepared for the bootcamp itself?
Blue Boxes. Lots of Blue Boxes.
I had gone through 3 or 4 of the books but wish I had done all twice before the bootcamp.
but, hey…#SATISFICE
I echo those sentiments ayodayo…
I promised a comprehensive review so I’ll go ahead and give it:
Overall, the course was very helpful to me and I believe it would be helpful for most candidates. Marc is a good instructor and knows the exam material really well. His approach is differentiated because he teaches from the exam books and he explains how the CFAI likes to construct their questions from the exam book. He has a good breakdown of where they actually pull exam questions from in the text (blue boxes, exhibits, end of chapter problems, and readings). He also does a great job of breaking down how they grade the exam and points out things to do to get extra points.
The materials you get for attending the course are the most valuable. He has taken every exam from the last fifteen years, removed questions no longer covered in the curriculum (or pointed out sections of questions that are no longer relevant) and then organized them by study session. So if you want to drill down on implementation shortfall calcs you can flip to that study session and do every question ever asked on that in the essay portion of the exam as practice. He specifically has a totally different book with all of the return calculation portion of former IPS questions. He gave all of the students a template for how to approach the IPS questions and went through all 12 of them with us on the second night. That exercise will be worth its weight in gold.
My only gripe about the course is that there wasn’t much attendee problem solving and then working through it as a class as there was in other review courses I’ve attended in the past at other levels. For example, one thing that was really helpful about John Harris’ workshop on top of all of his great materials was that he incorporated the students working tough problems in the class. That is something that helps me but Marc’s class didn’t really have time for that. Perhaps it could be restructured somewhat to accomodate something like that. The best part of the course for me was the IPS workshop so if there were chunks of time blocked off to do workshops for other topic areas it would be even better.
Overall, it’s hard to see how anyone could come out of the course less confident than they were going in. And yes, the thing to work on over the next month is Blue Box problems and White Text problems. If you’re going through EOC problems you’re probably wasting your time to some degree (though he does point out several that need to be worked). I plan on doing the Blue Box problems pointed out to us and then going through this gigantic exam book to work all of the old problems.