put in the time and your buddy will pass all 3 exams.
You will not be asked to solve differential equations or lotka euler equation or brain teasing and logic-heavy questions such as Wolrd Hunger: Solvable or Unsolvable?
Instead you will need junior high school level math and be able to read and understand the problems written in English.
After passing all three, it will not give you any license or right to do anything that a non charterholder cannot do unlike with cpa or bar exams…
Remember the average dude from your high school. Do you think he would pass level one with plus or minus 300 hours of study time. If you went to an average American high school, the odds are not good. Average just ain’t too bright.
Ghibli, I’m curious. I’m a graduated engineer from a reputable school with little to no finance background knowledge. I’m writing in June. Does the lack of finance knowledge require a significant amount of extra time to be put in for level 1 of the exam? I hear the whole “only read schweser no need to read the curriculum books” Is that a luxury for business graduates? All this under the assumption that I have atleast average intelligence and am good with numbers and atleast a decent capacity to learn having an engineering degree.
Well, I can remember taking Engineering Economic Analysis during undergrad. It was required for MEs. The CFAs exams are certainly no more advanced but the scope is much broader obviously. I used Institute materials exclusively. There are no tricks. The exam is really made from the curriculum. Schweser didn’t appeal to me for that reason. I can remember questions that required the recall of a sentence in the provided curriclum, almost as if the exam was testing if I actually read the curriculum. I had no interest in taking an exam twice and I felt my best odds came with reading the cfa materials. Many disagree though. And to your question, if you got through an accredited engineering curriculum and put in the time, no EXTRA needed, third party or not, I think your odds are good. 90 percent plus for level one. If it matters, Dec 09, June 10, June 11 for me. No formal prior finance or business education.
As an aside here–I scored a 560 on the GMAT, and I didn’t study one bit. 560 was the national average at that time.
Seven years later, I had an MBA from one of the finest institutions in the known universe, a CPA license, and the CFA charter. Take from that what you will.
I shall…nothing
The exams require both intelligence and hard work. The more you have of one, the less you need of the other, but everyone requires at least some of each.
I guess my point was…With zero prep, I got an average GMAT score, and went on to finish the CFA program.
So if you can score an average GMAT with zero prep, you probably have the brainpower to finish the CFA program.
Thanks for all the answers, the GMAT is an excellent idea.
The aim is to answer the question "how hard will it be for person X to study for his CFA? ", and GMAT seems the right tool there, only with the quantitative section and verbal section of GMAT. That can give a general idea about how this person X is at ease with simple calculations, problem solving, reading comprehension and logic. Importantly, the GMAT does not require prior knowledge of any technical subject.
The 2 other sections of the GMAT, “Analytical Writing Assessment” and “Integrated Reasoning”, look irrelevant for that purpose, as far as I can tell.
My friend came back to me about this, he sounds pretty serious now. I’ll have him try a practice GMAT and help him decide if he should shoot for June or December for CFA1.