I have to admit, that while I originally thought kartelite was trolling, he is beginning to grow on me.
That’s exactly what I was calling BS on. I’m not denying that there are a lot of really smart people here–people who get in the 99th percentile in their test scores, etc. I’m just saying that I don’t believe anybody in the world can pass Level 2 on 50 hours of study. And I don’t believe anybody can pass Level 3 in 50 hours of study, either.
The only person who could do that, if there were such a person, is somebody with a PhD in Finance and a PhD in Accounting, and who regularly teaches/researches these things at the grad level. Even then, I still think it would be a stretch, because I doubt a professor would know the different types of trades and the ethics, and the GIPS, and the CFA-unique terminology.
Greenman, I don’t think you’re grasping what it takes to succeed on the (in particular) L2 exam. You keep throwing out Phd-this, Phd-that…Frankly, that makes it look like you don’t know what you’re talking about. The PhD is a research degree. The last 3-4 years will be spent writing some esoteric papers in a niche area and will NOT make you much more qualified for CFA material (except through the stats/econ/accounting courses you’ll probably be teaching). A PhD program gives you experience a few inches wide and a mile deep, the complete opposite of CFA. Someone with solid undergrad/master’s-level training across a broad spectrum of the areas covered (particularly with a good mathematics background) and then a few years’ experience in a range of finance-related roles will have a much easier time than your Michigan finance PhD (who will no doubt be the person to go to if you want a lesson on multivariate stochastic integration).
Also, you said something like passing the L1 shows you know as much as a typical finance major from a mid-tier school. Are you saying most people with a similar or better background should be able to pass L1 with basically no studying?
I don’t know if “basically no studying” is the term I would choose. I would say that it should not be difficult.
The Level 1 curriculum is all the stuff that you learned in undergrad. Other than things that are exclusive to CFAI (Ethics and GIPS), I do not recall hardly anything that is not covered in finance undergrad. (I assume that to get a finance undergrad, you have to take Intermediate Accounting 1 and 2 and Intermediate Microeconomics.)
Therefore, if you do a quick review of the material and do a good thorough study of Ethics, you should be able to pass Level 1 fairly easily. I started studying at the first of October and passed it in December. And I had less education at that point than most finance undergrads (except in accounting–I had a lot of accounting, but most of that is not tested on the CFA exams.)
I think Greenman’s key point was when he said that you were “teaching” the stuff (after having a Ph.D.). Teaching stuff puts it front and center in your mind in the way that “having studied it” (even at a Ph.D. level) doesn’t. But you’re right that the Ph.D. is about your ability to do rigorous research more than mastery of a specific body of knowledge (which is what the master’s degree is supposed to be about).
It’s also true that Ph.D.s are trained to question results and approaches, whereas the CFA exams are more about applying the knowledge in the curriculum, so a number of Ph.D.s who don’t study for the exam run into problems because they overthink the problem and run out of time. They may be right - in an academic sense - to question the way the problem is framed, but at the end of the day, the goal is to fill in the right bubble and get the letters, not get the epistemologically right answer.
Hence, why I said “somebody who regularly teaches these subjects”. The professor who only studies time-series analysis of derivatives markets transactions would not regularly teach these subjects.
And I do grasp what it takes to succeed on the Level 2 exam. I have passed Level 2. Have you?
EDIT–BChad got to the point while I was typing. I agree with everything he said about professors who teach.
That I agree with; however, teaching the same three classes year in and year out won’t get you the breadth that is required for CFA. PhD holders who remain in academia are “specialized,” and their vast knowledge of a few areas (vis-a-vis people in industry) doesn’t compensate for general lack of breadth, and frankly I retain concepts better from having used them in practice than from having seen them in a textbook.
The major thing you’ve done to annoy me is launch a personal attack on my integrity, and despite this being an anonymous message board that’s something that really ticks me off. Neither of us can prove the studying time I put in, despite the evidence I can produce to corroborate everything else I’ve claimed. Yet you call me a liar and state that it’s impossible to pass L2 on 50 hours of study. Look, there are plenty of other people here who have said it should be doable with the right background. Just because you can’t imagine doing it doesn’t mean it can’t be done, and your condescending, dismissive attitude is quite annoying.
if you want to leave your email address (or make up an anonymous one), I’ll send you what amounts to strong circumstantial evidence that I actually was able to pass L2 with the study time I put in. I have a few things, but one is a return ticket from Mexico to the US the day before I allegedly began studying last year. If you think I was reading Schweser while walking around Chichen Itza and lounging on the beach, well I guess that would be possible?..or maybe I had studied a ton, then took a week vacation and then decided to pick it back up again 9 days before the test?
What the heck, here’s my Mexico ticket (notice I arrive Wednesday, May 23 at night, allegedly the day before I started studying).
http://overpronatorshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Mexticket-300x286.gif
Okay, tell me this email I wrote the next day doesn’t match up:
http://overpronatorshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/email.gif
How can you possibly prove how long you studied for?
That just proves that you were feeding another friend of yours the same lie. Where did you stay in Mexico?
Obviously I can’t prove, I said strongly corroborate.
The email above, where I say on May 24 that I’m about to begin my CFA study, is to someone who would have known how much time I’d put in at that point, if any…obviously I can’t prove that though. Maybe I wrote that email a year ago in anticipation of a trolling exercise on this forum.
Playa del Carmen - that friend was with me on the Mexico trip, would have been tricky to pull off that lie, particularly as we were dating.
There are several others that called BS on your “40-50 hours of study for Level 2” claim. Why are you picking on me? Did you not notice the others who said the same thing?
And it does not matter what you put on here–there’s no way that we can ever know how much you studied. I could claim that I didn’t study at all for Levels 1 or 2, and “here’s a ticket to an exotic location on May 25th to prove it.” The only thing that proves is that you went to an exotic location on May 25th. Maybe you studied 10 hours a day from September 1 to May 24th before that.
I suppose that it is theoretically possible that a person could study for a week then pass Level 2. If you go out 5,000 standard deviations, anything is theoretically possible. But since we are on an anonymous message board, I’m gonna go with the 99.99999% probability that you studied more than 40 hours.
““Jim, what you just heard from my opponent is an attack on my integrity and my character. And I will not reply in kind. Instead, I will take those remarks and tuck them away, away in a tiny “lock-box”, where all bad thoughts go.””
Wow he is a freakin genius!
If you think it takes 5000 std deviations to score 65% on a 3-answer MC exam covering undergrad material with a week’s studying, you’re delusional about what’s out there. Could most people do it? Nope. Have people done it? Yup. Will people do it again? Yup.
Look, some people can just cram tons of material into their heads in a short amount of time. Some people have a background that’s covered lots of the CFA subjects. When you take the intersection of those two subsets, you’re going to find that there is an even smaller yet non-trivial subset of people who can pass the CFA with little studying. My friends and coworkers would even joke about it. Here’s a convo from May 28 where I talk about how I just started studying and my friend says I’ll be fine.
http://overpronatorshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/y_conv.gif
http://overpronatorshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/y_conv2.gif
This.
Hi i am new to this forum.I am 30 years and want to changie my proffesion from a home tutor to a equity analyst.Enrolled for CFA level 1 .i dont have any masters comleted my graduation wayback in 2006 and since then joined my father in farming and giving home tutions also.My bachelor grades are pathetic.
How to get into equity research without ivy mba and as i dont have work experience in finance .
Jobs demand ivy college or 2-3 years of experience.
Iam unable to find how to get into.
Any help please.,!!!
Hmm… interesting.
To all the CFA Charterholders here: If you were young again, let’s say in your 20s, and you could do the program all over again, would you?