Take Level II in June 2019 after Dec 2018 Level I or wait until June 2020?

CFA General
#1

Hey all!

This last Saturday I sat for Level I and I’m trying to decide whether or not to take 3 weeks off before start studying for Level II or wait for June 2020.

I know this can be a recurring thread, but I would like to know your thoughts of this. My one concern for this is that I don’t want to burnout. For Level I, I started with around ~15 hours a week for the first 1-2 months. Then I ramped up to 20-25 hours per week for the last 3 months.

I studied most of the time with Schweser, and some more challenging readings (Derivatives, Fixed Income, PM) with the CFAI textbooks. I think my one major problem was that I took extensive notes for every reading (that I didn’t review either) and I realized of this mistake at the end, at the beginning of October.

So my questions are:

  1. Should I go and start studying (after a break) for Level II or wait until June 2020?
  2. If so, what strategy should I have for Level II? How different is compared with Level I?
  3. Any recommendations of prep providers for Level II? I really liked MM for Economics (I didn’t have any Macro in my undergrad, so I picked him because I had only 2 weeks to study Economics).
  4. Should you have any other advice, feel free to comment please!

Thanks in advance! P.S.: Please consider that my native language is Spanish.

#2

Don’t wait. You need to begin preparing for L2 immediately. L2 isn’t even comparable to L1 - believe you me. Skip ethics and start by reading quant, and then equity. That way if you must repeat level 1 you didn’t completely waste your time on topics that won’t strengthen your understanding of topics that appear in level 1.

#3

I had the same question and concerns. Thanks for the insight!! Will follow this protocol.

#4

Without knowing more of what might be going on in your life, my knee jerk response is that you should attempt Level 2 in June 2019. Why do next year (2020) what you could do this year (2019)?

#5

Take level 2 in June and go to the honeymoon.

#6

Thanks guys!

I already decided to do the L2 in June 2019.

:slightly_smiling_face:

#7

Good call. Now, go crush it!