This was in reference to part-time vs full-time. For me the difference was apparantment from first orientation
Remember to credit your earnings and income. Then you can offset it with debits to assets, expenses and dividends.
lol
If you credit cash by about 10,000, you can debit an asset called “Certified Investment Management Analyst”. It’s the same as studying at Wharton or Booth (the full-time version, I guess). That’s a perfectly viable alternative to the CFA.
Its “busy season” for me year round. So Black, Give me a f**king break on the F bombs.
Lol
I’m in a similar position as the original poster, though I made the decision to move ahead with taking the Level 1 exam in June. I have a Finance/Treasury/Accounting background, and a Masters in Int’l. Business. While I have a lot of spare time on my hands (no wife or kids) I’m not in my late 20’s…closer to 40. My eventual goal is to find a role where I can focus on International equities and markets.
I just looked at the Level 1 cirriculum and study guides (online) that I downloaded the other day. I have a LOT of review to do in a relatively short period of time, and already feel overwhelmed by it all.
Should I focus on the materials provided by the CFA Institute? Or should I consider coughing up more cash to buy the Schweser (or other?) guides that will be more useful?
Thank you in advance for your insights.
SU73, these questions are better off in the Level I forum:
http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-i-forum
You’ll get much better responses there. I used the CFA texts, but schweser is good too. Schweser is a little more abbreviated, sort of a “Cliff’s Notes” to the more in depth CFA text. You can pass using either set of materials. I used CFA materials the whole way, many of my friends used Schweser. Depends on your personal preference.
Thank you - I’ll be sure to check out that forum.
Was stormy banned?
Not to my knowledge (he posted 6 hours ago), although people have been banned unilaterlaly in the fairly recent past.
Iteracom. Stop slandering the Booth Part Time program. I’ve read your numerous other posts on the topic and quite frankly, I’m growing tired of it.
I’m a part time student at Booth. I went to an Ivy undergrad (Penn). I worked at a bulge bracket investment bank (Salomon Smith Barney). I went 3/3 in 18 months.
I decided that instead of applying to a full time program I would start a company. Now that I have a successful one and put food on the table for others as well as myself, I decided to circle back and check the box. I’m not going to leave my own business to take advantage of on campus recruiting.
I think it’s amusing that some full timers get so upset it’s the same degree in the end. Get over it bro. I won’t take your job. In 10 years it won’t matter. Most people don’t even realize there is a part time program at Booth and nobody runs around saying (yes, I went to Booth, the full time program). Seriously. Have you ever heard some 10 years out of school say that? That’s what really makes you angry.
You opened your own business good for you. Thats not what most people do and it matters far less when you are your own boss. Booth does segregate their part time full timers and that has been echoed by many people on this forum, gmat forums, and students. If that truth hurts, you apparently havent seen our top 3 or rusty hacksaw joke. Clearly you are biased since you attended part time there. Its rather ironic you think I am, I didnt go for an MBA. At one point I had plans to and did a lot of research and talked to a lot of students and grads. And many of those comments were negative for your schools part time program and career moving
Iteracom, I love how we always say basically the same thing and you always get yelled at for it. I have no idea why it happens, but it’s hillarious.
Beta Private, you seem a little overly sensitive. If you read my longer post above (top of page) deliniating the differences between FT and PT, it gives a pretty compelling and clear case explaining why the FT and PT programs at all schools (not just Booth, which you seem to think we’re picking on) are fundamentally different, with the PT program being weaker. Beyond that, FT students are making a 100% commitment to the curriculum and the team involvement, where as part timers such as yourself are balancing those commitments. Anyhow, read my other post. But frankly, Iteracom was not “SLANDERING” your school (you drama queen), what he stated was factually based, and unrefuted by you. The PT program is still awesome and a great choice, but if you think it’s the same as the FT, I think that would be a misperception. If the value of an MBA simply lay with curriculum, your point would hold water… but it doesn’t and yours doesn’t. Furthermore, as iteracom pointed out, it’s nice that you have your own business but most students are trying to transition or get placement. Both of these factors are better with the FT program due to student campus involvement and employer perception. They may not care 10 years later, but they do care at initial placement, and this may impact your position 10 years later. Then again, it may not, but it does carry an immediate term impact. My dad went to community college and started a company where he takes home multiples of your average HBS grad. That’s fine, but HBS is better than HACC (Harrisburg Area Community College).
I actually had a professor look at me and answer me point blank one time that FT >>>>PT
Anyone have quantitative metrics to demonstrate that FT >> PT?
I mean, it sure sounds plausible, and I can understand why a professor would say it is better to spend more time with him/her, but is there any measure of how big the difference actually is FT vs PT, and whether that difference is growing or shrinking over time?
As the world becomes more and more virtual, it seems to me that the difference between FT and PT would be shrinking.
This reminds me of the debate in academe during the early internet era about whether print publication or online publication was better. In the beginning, it was thought that online publications were just wimpy versions of print journal articles and didn’t count for much, compared to something that comes out on real paper with bindings. Today, there seems to be almost no difference in the prestige value (admittedly, based on collections of anecdotes), provided that the online journals have comparable brand names and editorial boards to the print ones.
In the journal articles case, I think PDF and online digital libraries like JSTOR had a lot to do with the shift, along with up-and-coming researchers ready to prove themselves on editorial boards and finding more online journals able to take them. After PDF, people no longer had obvious visual cues that this was “just a web page” when you printed it out, and people liked not having to go down to the library to look for stuff, then copy it on a xerox machine, etc. and so online became mainstream.
All you have to do is go look at the admission stats (admission rate, etc) or class profiles that show median gmat, etc. Then there’s also the process itself, some PT programs don’t even require that you take the GMAT or do an interview, compared to the rigor of the FT application process. FT program applicants apply against a global set of candidates versus PT, which is generally just localized competition.
The issue with the online / print example bchad, is that this isn’t the difference between reading an article on paper and reading it online. We’re talking about level of focus and concentration and all the of the things in my first post on this page that your example doesn’t really address (usually your examples are pretty good, but this one didn’t really seem strong).
My brother is in a top part time MBA program and didn’t even have to submit a gmat score.
Booth doesn’t even bother to publish it’s part time GMAT average, so I’ll take Stern:
Part time avg: 672
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/part_time_mba_profiles/stern.html
Full time avg: 720
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/stern.html
Using businessweek for the rest:
CMU
Part Time
GMAT: 645
Selectivity: 77%
Fulltime:
GMAT: 698
Selectivity: 27%
Haas
FT/PT GMAT: 718/692
Ross
FT/PT GMAT: 706/648
My example wasn’t intended to be a direct comparison. It’s more about how as the world does more and more stuff online and at a distance, interactions that are mediated by the internet and take place at a distance no longer seem as much like low quality versions of face-to-face or more direct interactions. Part time MBAs have less face time, but they do not necessarily have less work.
It seems highly plausible to me that - for now - FT > PT, but eventually someone is going to figure out how to do PT well, and capable people who don’t have $$$ for FT (particularly the part where you have to stop working for two years) start doing PT, and companies discover that the difference may not be so bad, although you may have to select based on slightly different metrics, and then the gap is likely to close. Maybe that has already started to happen - I’m not in a position to say - but I definitely think one can’t easily jump to conclusions here.
It’s true that you posted a set of good arguments for FT, but I read it a while ago and probably have forgotten some of the points. I did not reread it when this thread resurfaced just now.
But I don’t think your stats immediately above necessarily talk about the value of FT vs PT, although it does speak to the value of having been chosen for a FT program. A real test of the value of FT vs PT would be some kind of before-and-after analysis that sees whether participation in a FT program has improved career trajectories (even if just one or two years out of school) more than the PT program has. How big of a jump does FT vs PT offer people, relative to how they started… that’s a important part of the test of value. If you measure it that, way, PT may not be such a bad thing.
My main reason for taking this side is not because I genuinely believe PT = FT or is roughly the same (I’m agnostic, but leaning toward FT), it’s just that when I find myself thinking “Well of course FT is better,” I recognize that this is one of those things that might seem obvious on its face (and we can look up a bunch of facts to support our case), but which might well turn out not to be as true (or as obviously true) as we initially thought, particularly as learning institutions learn to do part time programs more effectively in order to compete in an increasingly busy world.
I had a similar take on technical analysis, which was poo-hooed by the CFA curriculum (when I took it, at least), and it just sounded like something that was dismissed a little too simplistically. These days I think technical analysis does have value, but as an ensemble method in conjunction with other stuff, or as a reflection of behavioral and/or psychological states of the market.
One final point on PT vs FT is that whether one is better than the other may depend on whose perspective one is taking. A company may say “we like FT better than PT,” and so that would seem to suggest that FT is better. But perhaps the candidate would not be selected for that super-awesome company even if they did do a FT program. From the point of the person doing the program, PT may well be a better choice in terms of how it improves their prospects given their resources, even if Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan doesn’t take PT as seriously as FT.
See, Bchad, I think your understanding of the value of an MBA is somewhat flawed.
Yes, I understand in a more academic discipline like economics, the curriculum dominates. But I don’t think you’ll find a top MBA program anywhere that isn’t valued by students and employers for 1) the power of networking 2) interactions with the students 3) opportunities for leadership development
There’s no way to properly circumvent that proximity gained through FT. The students are lower caliber from an acadmic standpoint. They can’t push as quickly or as deeply, you’re also not being challenged by your peers as much (they aren’t as highi quality and you aren’t around them as much). You don’t get the same level of networking (real relationships you can reach out to, not a business card). And there’s less teamwork and fewer extra curricular opportunities to develop leadership and teamwork. Those are facts you can’t circumvent. Partly due to the program structure, and partly due to the less hours students can contribute outside the classroom due to competing priorities.
If there’s anything your dot com example did prove is that hubris about brick and mortar being replaceable with technology has been overturned via the return to hybrid models. ie. There are limitations to what can be accomplished, the human experience is not replaceable. The primary role of an MBA is to develop LEADERSHIP, not learn to balance ledgers. It seems to me the people that don’t see the value in that, or think soft skills and non quanitifiable aspects are neglideable may have missed the point entirely.
While I can’t quantify the “jump” gained by going FT over PT (data unavailable), the fact remains that FT programs are more selective, have higher caliber starting material, immerse you in a more challenging environment, and tend to have the strongest networks on exit. You have at least stated that it seems plausible FT>PT, while most other have said it outright. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at the time of placement.
I mean, if you’d like to stick to requiring complete evidence, then I can’t prove beyond any possible doubt that FT>PT, but I can give you a pretty strong case with a buttload of supporting evidence that all point to a pretty clear conclusion.