I appeared for my CFA Level 1 exams in Dec2014. On 19th December I received a mail regarding Notice of Investigation with regards to a Violation Report filed against me. It alleged me to be seen ‘bubbling after time was up’.
I replied to the PCP (Professional Conduct Program) on 2nd January 2015. I received an email confirming that my reply has reached them. As there was no contact/response from them for a few weeks, I sent them a follow up email on 26th January 2015 asking about the release of my results. I received a reply which said that my results won’t be released until the investigation is complete and I won’t be able to register for the exams either during this period.
It’s already been more than a month since I replied to the Notice of Investigation and I haven’t been contacted again by the PCP with regards to the issue. They haven’t even given any deadline or time limit.
Previously, if anyone else has faced this issue, I’d like to know how much time does it take for this investigation to complete? And if anyone has any idea how long will it take before they release my results?
^Probably…somehow there are a ton of people taking the CFA exam who think they have the skills to follow and implement a specific investment mandate but cannot follow simple directions like “Pencils down”.
Candidates must not continue to write or erase after time is called.
In violation of the rules and regulations of the CFA Program, at the conclusion of the morning and/or afternoon session of the exam, some candidates continued to write and/or erase. The Professional Conduct Program investigated each report of a suspected violation. At the conclusion of the investigation, if the Professional Conduct Program determined the candidate wrote and/or erased past time called, the candidate was advised of the findings of a violation and recommended sanction. Each candidate was provided an opportunity to accept the Professional Conduct Program’s findings and recommended sanction or request a Hearing Panel.
From 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2013, the following sanctions were imposed for this violation, either as accepted by the candidate or imposed by a hearing panel composed of Disciplinary Review Committee members:
698 Private Reprimands
48 One-Year Suspensions
1 Three-Year Suspension
All of these cases included a finding of a violation of the rules and regulations and therefore resulted in the voiding of the candidate’s exam results.
I was seated right in the front and a proctor was right on my head. I was on the last question and I knew the time is about to end. I was coloring the bubble and just then the head proctor announced ‘time up…stop writing’ and the proctor standing on my head was like ‘stop writing stop writing’. I had already stopped there and then and closed my booklet.
And I’ll never accept what I haven’t done. You’re not guilty until proven.
I just want to know how long do these investigations usually take?
Thank you for that link would you look at that. I don’t know if I am more worried seeing those graphs or a little relieved
WTF do you think this is, a democracy or something? The good news is cheating during level 1 means you get punted before you spend the 3 years hacking away at this, rather than getting punted after. So see this as a good thing.
Exactly, this is not the US court system. CFAI is a private organization and is not required to give you a “fair trial”. If an invigilator said you kept writing after time was called and no other invigilator comes to your defense, you’re guilty.
and look you have to consider that these proctors, their job is to literally watch for cheating (wriitng past time, catching people looking at others, cheat sheets, etc).
So definitely if it comes down to your word vs theirs, theirs is going to get a lot of weight
Sorry you’re not getting the answer you want, but you’re getting the truth. It really doesn’t matter if you wrote after time was called or not. If an invigilator said you did, there’s really nothing you can do about it. Try to look at it from the CFAI’s perspective. On one hand, you have a person hired to proctor an exam and watch for cheating, who benefits in no way from wrongly accusing someone of cheating. On the other hand, you have some random person who met the requirements to take the exam, had the funds to register, and could benefit greatly from filling in a few extra bubbles after time was called. In all seriousness, who would you believe if you were on the review board?
FWIW, if time was an issue for you on L1, you have very little chance of making it through levels 2 and 3, so the invigilator likely did you a favor by wrongly accusing you of cheating.
Someone saw you _________________ after time was called.
A) holding a pencil
B) holding a pencil near your exam
C) finishing writing
D) continuing to write
E) more than one of the above
None of these scenarios involve you sitting there, very clearly innocent. It sounds like (and this could be wrong) “micro seconds” was caused by you finishing a bubble after time was called.
personally if I was sitting in the front row, for the last 10 seconds of the exam, I would have made sure I had closed my test book already with my pencil far away from my hands
