Anyone use only Schweser and pass all three levels? I didn’t bother cracking the CFAI material for level 1 or 2, thinking about using the same strategy for level 3. Wondering if this is something people do.
You should at the very least do the end of chapter CFAI questions.
I used Schweser, never even opened the CFAI textbooks, and passed with flying colors. As long as you have some supplementary practice questions (Schweser again, is a good source), you should be fine.
^it also helps to have an iq of >120+
I used…
…CFA books for about 50% and last years Schweser books for the other 50% for level 1
…Wiley and some EOC questions from the CFAI books for level 2
…Schweser and some EOC questions from the CFAI books for level 3
For all three levels I also used the CFAI books as a reference when something from Schweser or Wiley was unclear for me. I passed all three levels at first try.
I think it would work to only use Schweser for all three levels.
For you L3 candidates who’ve used Wiley and Kaplan at some point along the candidate path, are you guys gravitating more towards Kaplan for L3?
I think most of us on here are 120+ #amiright
I used Wiley for L2 and decided to use Schweser for L3, because Wiley had some drawbacks:
* At least for L2 in 2015 they absolutely didn’t stick to their time tables. The release dates were postponed regularly and the whole material was available quite late. For L3 I didn’t want to take that risk again and wanted to be sure when the material is available.
* There was no printed version available until February if I remember correctly. So I had to print out the material in order to work with it. The price for the printed books was only 25 USD, but they wanted to have 150 USD for the shipping to Europe. Since I already paid some money to print out hundreds of pages I decided not to pay 175 USD for the printed version.
* You have to be aware that the study books don’t contain any questions or exercises. If you want to have questions/exercises you have to buy a seperate book. The price for both was ok, but you have to be aware of it.
Because of all this I wanted to be on the safe side and purchased Schweser for L3 (and I was absolutely happy with the Schweser material). But it wasn’t all bad with Wiley. The quality of the material was very good and I liked the way they summarized the material. I also bought the “11th hour guide” for L2 (which is comparable to Schweser’s Secret Sauce) which was also very good and gave a very good summary of the all readings.
To sum it up: Wiley’s quality was very good, but you couldn’t rely on them. If this has changed I think Wiley could be worth a try for L3. If not, I would recommend Schweser.
Thank you very much for the detailed insight, Alex74!
100% schweser… but i did solve the EOC for every area on curriculum for level 2 and 3… not for level 1 though
Exceptions: a. Those who get a letter about cheating/violations b. Wrong calculators/forgetting to bring one and acting like they don’t need one c. Failing level 1 multiple times d. Asking about job prospects from having passed level 1
Too much material in the CFAI texts. Schweser is much more concise and focuses on things you need to know to pass. I compared the Ethics readings from CFAI and Schweser. It was an easy choice for level1. Got >70 so it was fine I guess.
I only refer back to CFAI texts when some chapters are over-simplified in Schweser. Fixed income is a good example. Schweser just throws concepts like convexity and duration at you with formulas and inadequate explanation, almost as if saying “dude just memorize this formula and don’t worry about what it means”. Another example is currency forward contracts, where Schweser just hurriedly wraps up with a bunch of formulas without ever explaining why the price currency goes in the numerator. Things like this can be hard to grasp by merely memorizing the formula if you don’t understand how it’s derived. For these sections, CFAI books are better.