It seems like the active posters on AF are a very small % of the total L3 candidates. My guess would be ~ <3% of the total L3 candidate pool.
Also, it seems like most of the active posters are Type A and overachievers. So, if you guys are having some difficulty with the exam, then I’m guessing normal candidates had a really tough time.
May be 10% . Pure guess.
Are we so sure AF represents above average candidates? There might be overconfidence bias here…as well as suvivorship bias in who reports their results
say there are probably 27,000 candidates taken level 3 based on the amount that passed level 2 and failed level 3 last year minus some who dropped out of program. i’d purely guess that no more than 1,000 post or look at this, let alone even know about it. i never knew about this until 2 weeks ago and all my friends who took it (around 10) didnt even know about this site.
also, i dont beleive people on AF are above average candidates. i actually highly doubt that they are. i would guess that they are average based on the fact that people come on here to post questions / concepts that they do not understand b/c they can not figure it out on their own.
I don’t think most people come here to ask about stuff. Most of the candidates posting right now seem to have joined just after the exam. I think people come here more to share the CFA experience than to learn stuff - doing blue boxes seems to be way more effective for learning than reading AF.
Also, I don’t think asing questions qualifies a candidate as average or below-average. There are several concepts that even CFAI doesn’t seem to figure out on their own. Are Covered Calls a form of downside protection? Does the correlations between emerging and developed markets really increase during times of stress? There are many times when CFAI authors seem to disagree with one another.
That aside, I actually agree with you. I don’t think we have enough evidence to believe that AFers are above average. The median AF mock score doesn’t seem o be that great, and if we adjust for self-reporting bias (or maybe even a couple liars) we may look pretty average as a whole. We cannot reject the hypothesis that AFers are average, or something…
I also would estimate it to be a very small percentage of total test takers and I very much disagree with the idea that most posters here are above average. While there are some very skilled people here, if anything I think on average most posters are average at best, if not below average. I try to not visit the site while studying unless I have a specific question because reading the different (and often wrong) ideas is more confusing to me than helpful. Not to mention I hate the clunky layout of the site.
Just a bit. Many keep reading on, but not participate in the discussion.