KK is the man. I met him when I was prepping for L2 (as he was). I should drop him a note one of these days. I always thought he’d be a good guy to work with.
In any sense, I have no idea who you are spun. I know you’re in MN, and when you said FRM, 4 kids, failed L2 and L3 a few times (you forgot 1 divorce); I figured it had to be him.
I know seven charter holders quite well and have another friend who is taking Level 3 with me this year (fingers) crossed. Four of them went 3/3 and the other 3 failed one level – two failed Level 2 and one failed Level 3 on their first attempt. My friend had to retake Level 1 and I retook Level 2. We all work in the front office, in asset management. All of us have taken BPP/7 City prep courses (ten days of classroom instruction) paid for by our employers.
The main differentiator between my friends that passed 3/3 and the guys that didn’t was that they (a) took it when they were younger (finishing by 25) and (b) because they were younger, didn’t have live-in girlfriends/boyfriends/families like they do now and had less responsibility at work.
Definitely a good guy and really supportive of the research team. Didn’t know about the divorce.
I’ve never failed anything in my life. If you are a failure, then you should probably just apply at McDonald’s now.
^This. Go 3/3, Perfect GMAT, Top 3 MBA, and KKR. Otherwise just saw your nuts off. Do us all a favor and not reproduce. On second thought, just saw your head off. Do the world a favor.
Then you’ve probably never tried to do anything worth doing.
And you’ve probably never learned anything.
You failed at this post. (sorry - couldn’t miss the joke)
Building a little on GM’s comment above, if all you want to do in life is pass 3/3 and avoid getting hit by a meteor maybe that’s not the biggest possible accomplishment…
If a year passes by and all my goals are accomplished I’m pretty happy, but I also decide to tough them up since my goals were probably too low.
We should fail some of our goals. If we never do it, it means they’re too easy. Maybe yours aren’t, but then again you still can’t outplay Michael Jordan, can you?
I failed L2 multiple times so even McD is probably too prestigious for me.
My 2011 year and 2nd fail at L2.
Father diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March. Surgery to remove the cancer in April failed. He lived in a different city so I was flying back and forth. I spent days at a time working from his hospital room or my parents’ house in the weeks before he died. Perk of being an analyst – can work from anywhere with a laptop and a phone. On several occasions, he told me how thankful he was that I was there with him and how proud he was watching me work. Passed away in August.
Daughter born with a serious heart issue in May and spent 7 weeks in NICU. During that time she had a meningitis scare and surgery for a feeding tube near the end. She was stable after 5 weeks but couldn’t eat on her own because she was so weak. She was released with the hope her ASD (hole in heart) would close on its own. Her growth started to plateau after a few months so her cardiologist recommended surgery in December. It’s something else seeing your baby girl with IVs stitched into her skin on her neck and arm. Plus having a drain tube coming out of her chest. The doctor said it was the second largest hole he’d seen in his career for an infant. She’s doing awesome now and growing like a weed.
Out of the blue, my best friend died in November from pneumonia. Friends aren’t supposed to die in their early 30s. Harder to swallow than when my dad died.
My 2011 review from my manager.
Most productive year so far. The research I was generating was the best he’d seen from me. He was getting a lot of good feedback from the traders and the PMs in the field. Promoted that year. He couldn’t do too much with my salary but had some control with my bonus. Bonus target went from 20% to 40% of my salary.
For some reason, I don’t really feel too much like a failure. Finally passed L2 in 2012.
I honestly have more respect for those who failed and didn’t neglect life but had the perserverance to keep going. Hey, you know… you still have to be bright to pass no matter how long it took you to get there. Life gets in the way sometimes… don’t be one of those selfish a-holes that doesn’t let friends, family, or anything get anywhere close to butting in while on the path to victory. I only pray I don’t do anything like that.
3/3 in 18 months (it’s really more like 21-24 months). I test well, but I also studied smarter than most people.
For example, I knew about Creighton (thx analystforum) whereas a lot of local people here never heard of it and maybe failed L3. My notes and study process were very thoughtful and I’ve been offered money by random finance professionals (not even CFA test takers) for a copy of my CFA notes. I actually tutor some CFA students part-time.
Overall, time is what matters most for the CFA exams. Not brains.
In my experience, people who fail exams fall into one of three categories:
some of the people who fall into this group are actually foreigners who are learning 2 things at once – the material and the english terms. it’s very hard for some people to learn the accounting, then try to learn the english terms behind the accounting. i had a russian guy who couldn’t internalize the difference between the terms “cost” and “expense” in english, for example. that took like 20 mins alone.
people who misjudge how to properly study and what the exam entails – these people walk out of the exam saying stuff like “i can’t believe those essays on L3!” or “i did so well on schweser qbank, idk how that CFA exam was so hard. schweser screwed me!!” these people do not sit and think about how the test is designed, how to tackle the material in a strategic way, they just go reading by reading and hope they get it all done in some method that maybe helped them barely pass L1 or in some very low/medium productivity approach that they used to study classes in college.
people who fail because they do not belong in finance. i’ve met a few people who are like architects, art history majors, artists, and not every left brained individuals who really do not belong in finance. people who literally say to me, “I never use Excel. I mostly use the computer for things like facebook/twitter, but not MS Office”. One person actually explained to me how they compare creating a stock portfolio with writing a poem - assembling all the ingredients for a well balanced poetic ensemble. It was one of the most ignorant things i’d ever heard (this person failed L1).
I honestly think a certain number of people are enthralled by the romantic, legendary like figures who are well known portfolio managers and investors. They have this grass is greener mentality coupled with the hero-worshipping viewpoint. They see well known portfolio managers as heroic figures (warren buffett) like something out of the crusades or a Homer epic. One english major was explaining to me his viewpoint along these lines. I actually said to the guy, “my view is that you have to put up results. put up the #s, whether its the CFA exam or a stock portfolio, or you might as well fuck off and die.” Never heard if this person passed, but they never contacted me again.
Could you go into some details about you study smart? I’d love to read your in-depth strategy, since you have been successful.
My take on these two: Yes, there are a lot of unemployed poets taking the CFA exam, but I think that for those who really have an aptitude for finance and the desire to change careers, CFA is a good way of showing the fact that you have talent, just chose the wrong major in college. (I decided to get a part-time MBA first, then the CPA, now shooting for CFA.)
Most people in finance only see the “high-flyers”, like Buffett, Soros, Meriwether, Peter Lynch, or Gordon Gekko. I have never met a person getting a degree in finance who said, “I want to be the collections manager at the local hospital.” If we knew that “commercial credit analysis” consisted of taking the last three years of tax returns and putting them in a canned software package that spat out canned results, and that we would only get paid $42,000, we would think differently about our career choice.
I remember that guy. That thread was horribly depressing.
I failed L1. I was in grad school and someone mentioned I should go the CFA route so I registered in mid October for the Dec exam. When the stack of books arrived on my doorstep I realized I had made a huge mistake. After my initial setback I passed the next three.
I failed L1 3 times, then passed L2 and L3 on the first try. Not the typical route, but I got the CFA designation this past fall. Now to go get a better job…
Okay… that HAD to have been an effort/time thing for the Level 1 failures, ya?
Good for you sticking with it. In all honesty, if you were a buddy of mine I would have told you to give up after the 2nd try (assuming you had actually put in the requisite effort) and clearly that would have been bad advice.
I think it was BigBabbu or something like that. Super nice guy.
This is my experience,
2008 Level I, fail band 10
2009 Level I, PASS +70% for all items
2010 Level II, fail band 9
2011 Level II, PASS
2012 Level III, PASS
I failed level I the first time around because I didn’t give the exam the respect, I smashed it on the second attempt.
I failed level II the first time around because it is freaking hard and didn’t learn everything. Derivatives, fixed income and FSA are a bit tricky in this level. My only tip is you need to know everything and be able to apply it.
I passed level III on the first attempt because I studied like a mofo. I put in 500+ hrs.
Some people will say the CFA is easy, but I disagree, I found it hard. It all depends on your life situation, I have a young family and had to study with a pregnant wife and new born child. There were times when I would give my 4 month old son a highlighter to play with while I nursed him and read a CFA book.
GOOD LUCK AND STUDY HARD
Winner take it all
I have heard that only about 8% of candidates make it through all 3 levels without failing at least one of them. Not sure if that’s true but if you multiply historical passing rates, it’s 10%. (42% L1 x 45% L2 x 54% L3 = 10.2%), so it’s gotta be somewhere around there.