Recent announcement popped up in my Linked in. Now undergrad ‘senior’ may apply for CFA Level I.
What else in store … open book exams may be . Things are moving faster than the spread of Pandemic itself.
In my view, and I’m probably going to be roasted for it, but please bear with me, the CFA doesn’t feel like an advanced exam. For starters, you don’t even need to know Calculus. The most math you need is basic algebra taught in middle school. Many of the topics on Probability and Statistics are covered at a very basic, introductory level. Having taken an upper division course on applied Probability, I can guarantee that none of the probability problems I’ve seen on the forums come even close to the level of difficulty in an upper division Probability course, which by the way requires Calculus as a prerequisite.
I feel like an average high school student can probably take the Probability/Statistics sections of the exam with just a little bit of coaching. Even time value of money problems aren’t exactly college-level. A simple summation is almost always enough, though in many cases you don’t even need math, since you can use the TI BA II Pro to do the whole calculation for you. Now, it’s a different story for the Corporate Finance section, but even that portion should be doable with a little coaching. The hard part is probably getting a high school student motivated enough to spend an extra time to prepare for a CFA exam when they would much rather spend the time doing something else.
It might be worth noting that these days, High School students are taking AP Calculus. Statistic courses are also offered in High School, but most students don’t take it for whatever reason.
More concerning, in my opinion, is the move to offer their exams online. I feel like it’s significantly more prone to cheating compared to having the exams offered at Prometric.