we all know CFAI reccomends 300 hours, but how many hours did you actually commit?
personally, I probably commited 150+ hours, but am a recent college grad with corpfin, accounting, econ, and stats classes under my belt. also i work as a financial analylst for a middle market bank so i don’t think i needed the full 300 hours. *knock on wood* but i think i passed.
how about you all?
Probably 300 just to be safe. I too am a Finance and Accounting major and recent grad and found the exam to be much easier then anticipated.
Probably over 400. Social science major, four years of industry experience but in wholesaling, not valuation/analysis. The only relevant courses I ever took were two stats classes, so I knew most of the quant methods fairly well.
When I started studying for my Level I exam I had a degree in Accounting, two degrees in Mathematics, and worked as a mortgage securities analyst for PIMCO. Of the topic areas in the curriculum:
Even with that, I studied well over 300 hours. My reasoning was simple: I hated studying for the exam, but I knew that if I failed it I’d have hated at least ten times as much studying for it a second time.
I put in close to 300hrs but I think I failed - because the last 50hrs are actually the most crucial. And I could just not take as much time off as I would have needed…
I didn’t time myself, but I think I must have put in more than 300 hours. I have a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Math, so pretty much all of topics were new to me. Never had any exposure to accounting, but I actually found it very interesting, and it clicked after I read the CFAI curriculum book once. I found that the last month of studying was of utmost importance, since it’s during that last month during review and mock tests that your brain finally starts putting things together.
I just graduated with a degree of Finance and minor in computer science. Took tons of optional finance courses in school. Spend two weeks to study the exam right before the exam date, apporximately 110 hour. I do not know will I pass it or not, but the exam seems to be easier than I expected. When I walked out the exam, I heard many people saying it is easier than they expected.
This x 100. (I only had a BBA undergrad in finance though, with no work exp)
The June 2013 exam turned out to be easier than I expected. If I fail, I don’t know what else I could have done to better prepare so hopefully I pass.
I’m thinking my total time was close to 300, but a lot of it was within the last two weeks…
Dont count hours. Just read every page, do every EOC question (at least twice), know the blue box examples inside and out, complete all the mocks you can find and you have a great shot at passing. Hitting 300 hours and then shutting down the engines won’t work. You are competing against a large group of people who may have studied more than you.
For L1 I had degrees in all the main topics and was working as a buy side analyst and still studies my ass off for at least an hour per day and then in the months leading up to the test probably 2-3 hours / day. The week of 6 hours / day.
As S2000 magician said, you dont want the risk of studying for this test a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) time.
Just FYI - if you’re a Finance & Accounting major, then you probably didn’t need to study this much.
But you will need to study all of that and then some for Level 2, no matter what your major.
Level 2 separates the wheat from the chaff.
My sentiments too. Felt that the exam is manageable and easy. If I fail, I dont know what else i could have further done to pass - hope to pass this exam.
Not sure of my total time just reading/studying the material but I know for a fact I did over 1,500 practice problems in the last 4-weeks leading up to the exam.
Over 500 hours here. Undergrad over 14 years ago in Business Economics. 14 years as Financial Advisor experience and CFP certification. The experience helped with discipline. The formal studies helped provide a base. I feel I did everything I could do to pass this Level I. Best wishes to all of you.
Over 300 hours here, but it was really concentrated towards apr and may
I’d say about 400hrs. However, I felt like if I put in 10 hours or 2,000 hours, it wouldn’t have made any difference on the test. In 2013, as in all years prior to this, a whole bunch of stuff showed up that wasn’t even in the curriculum. I love how they ask you things on the that test which they don’t even tell you to study!! They should let people bring in notes, and books, and whatever they want, because it won’t make any difference anyway.
Eventhough a lot of people claimed to have studied over 600hrs, etc, I don’t think the 300hrs recommendation by CFA is far off.
First of all, of all the CFA candidates i know (who were studying with me at one point), most of them start studying in early Jan (for June exam). Let’s say you study 2 hours every weeknight after work and 5 hours each day on the weekend (this is extremely diligent, I for one did not put in this kind of hours until perhaps the last month?), that’s roughly 430hrs of studying in 5 months. This is ACTUAL STUDYING of course, not including “freshening up” every 15min, opening the fridge door, and checking emails, etc… 
I think most people probably study between 300 to 450hrs to prepare for L2 and L3, with L1 probably closer to 300hrs.
Truth. I took L1 in June 2012, and passed comfortably studying ~30 hours. I’m not suggesting that’s the right number for anyone else, but L1 is really basic concepts type stuff, with a very heavy leaning towards accounting. Between 2 accounting degrees, the CPA exam, and years working in capital markets - studying for 300+ hours would have been a colossal waste of my life.
Meh. Again, it depends on your educational and professional background and experience. I did about 30 hours again for L2, and while I was definitely not as prepared as I would have liked, I still feel like I’m right on the cutline with a 50/50 chance to pass (we’ll find out 27 days from now…). At worst, I’ll know where to focus my efforst next year, and I’d be shocked if I couldn’t pass if I actually devoted 50-100 hours to it.
I don’t say any of this to brag - I just dislike all of the “one size fits all” advice that gets thrown around here. “Study 300 hours or you’ll fail!”, “Read all of the Schweiser materials, then take no fewer than 5 mock exams!”, “Spend more time studying abc topics, and less on xyz topics!”. That’s all nonsense - everyone needs to figure out what works for them. When I study, I jump right to practice problems using the textbooks as reference materials - this is how I learn most effectively. Lectures just don’t resonate with me, but if that’s how *you* learn, then that’s how you should study. Likewise, I spent approximately zero hours studying for the accounting portion of L1, even though it was the most heavily tested topic on the exam. Why? Because I knew all of that stuff already - rather I spent time on areas I knew I was weaker, like quant. If you are coming in with a statistics background, your study plan should obviously be different.
None of this is rocket science, but for some reason a lot of people around here talk like there’s a right way and a wrong way to prep for these tests, which is crazy to me.
Revisit this once you get your results. I’ll be shocked if you pass with only 30 hours–no matter how much education or experience you have. And if you take it next year with only 100 hours of study, I’ll still be shocked if you pass.
Yes, you should tailor your study plan to fit your strengths and weaknesses. But I think those of us who give advice are just stating what we wish we had done, and what we see others do.
In my opinion, the two mistakes most people make for Level 2–they spend too much time focusing on the minutae in Econ and Quant (which combines for 10% of your grade), and they don’t spend enough time in the Accounting (which will be about a quarter of the whole test) or Derivatives (which will be as much as Quant/Econ combined). I know this is certainly true with me when I took L2 the first time.
And no matter what your background is–practice questions are the key. I think this is universal to all candidates in all levels and at all designations (FRM, CPA, CFP, what have you).
The problem for me was that I was pretty busy with projects and assignments from school to the point that I forgot about the CFA. Only realised it closer to my exam (school) dates but since the school exams were more important, I decided to put off the CFA studying… In the end I only studied for 3 weeks with about maybe 80 hours total. Hence I don’t really have much hope of passing. Really regretted not putting in more time at the start but what’s done is done.