Your consultant is bull shitting you.

Cannot answer your question because this depends on individual's capability on studying. For myself, just studying the CFA books are more than enough, I don't even have extra time to read other non-CFA books.

I self-study for level 1, whereby level 2 and 3 I took tuition class. Questions on calculation and theory is 50-50.

You can make payment to the CFA Institute via credit card when you are online registering the CFA exam.

No, you are not qualified to sit for the CFA exam with ACCA part 2, unless you have 4-year professional working experience.

As far to what I know, ACCA part 2 is not considered as the final year of university degree. Anyway, I stand to be corrected, it's better for those who may concern to inquire the CFA Institute directly.

What is OBU?

Now I know ACCA part 2 equivalent to final year degree. Anyway, without passing all ACCA exams mean the candidate is not a degree graduate yet, then he will be barred from further proceed for CFA Level II exam even he had passed Level I.

It is just like our self-assessment for tax declaration, CFA members/candidates are requested to sign Professional Conduct Statement and Candidate Responsibility Statement respectively. After the members/candidates sign those statements, it is up to the CFA Institute to take their own sweet time to audit the background and declaration disclosed by the members/candidates. The audit could be done in the discretion of the CFA Institute before or after the institute has accepted the application by the members/candidates.

So members/candidates can talk-cock and bull-shit about their experience and background, till someone expose them or the CFA Institute start to feel suspicious over the information provided by the members/candidates, the Institute will start to investigate, and in case they find out that the information provided by the members/candidates was not genuine, then the Institute will take disciplinary action against the members/candidates, normally come with a suspension or revoke of membership of the Institute.

Someone get through the inspection of the CFA Institute (as the Institute might not start to investigate yet) to register for Level II without proper profile or experience does not mean they are safe, they might be haunted with what they have done in the beginning, especially when they are at the peak of their career or famous to the public, as someone who know their background could be jealous and will expose them to the Institute.

So be aware when you are thinking to modify your academic and working background, it is taking you donkey year to get through the exam and then accumate relevant year of experience but it will wacked away your membership in a blink of eye just because of your small little lie.

Back to the case of fino_abama's friend who took ACCA and was able to registered for CFA Level II as well. IMHO, the CFA Institute equate ACCA qualification to a degree, so whoever completed ACCA program will be considered as a degree graduate and thus they are eligible to sit for CFA exam on all levels, irregard if they have OBU or not. However, ACCA part 2 is equivalent to final year degree and only eligible to sit for CFA Level I. If the candidate would like to proceed for CFA Level 2, he is required to prove he is a degree graduate or he completes ACCA program or he has 4-year professional experience. So I assumed fino_abama's friend had completed the ACCA program before registering for CFA Level 2.

This post has been edited by kinwing: Oct 13 2011, 12:06 PM

Just give you an example that when a candidate applies to become CFA Chartered, he asks 2 sponsors who are his friends to bull shit that he has enough experience but actually he is not qualified yet. So he attains his CFA Chartered by lying. If later the CFA Institute find out he was not telling the real experience, the CFA Institute cannot take action against him because it had approved his application before? I thought we believe the wrong doer will pay one day, it's just matter of time.

"They should have a standard way of determining it" is not adopt by the CFA Institute. Even the minimum passing score ('MPS') are flexible to be determined case by case basis in the discretion of the CFA Institute. The CFA Institute mentioned that "The size of the group, its diversity, and its reliance on independent judgments contribute to the power of standard setting results.", so do you still believe that the passing score is 70% mark? The CFA Institute further mentioned "Neither the Minimum Passing Score nor individual candidate scores have ever been released", so it is not transparent how the MPS is set and it is up to CFA Institute to take the necessary decision..

This post has been edited by kinwing: Oct 13 2011, 02:42 PM

It doesnt matter if it is real life or made up case, as it is possible due to human nature that lie is everywhere. When the CFA Institute mentioned "if all entrance requirements are met and the application is approved" does not mean it has no post vetting right on members/candidates' profile again, and the CFA Institute would have reserved the right to suspend or revoke membership of wrong doer without backfiring themselves.

"Neither the Minimum Passing Score nor individual candidate scores have ever been released" tell us the procedures is not transparent and I am not sure if the procedures have been followed or not, just like some CFA Chartered wannabe on telling their made-up experience and I have come through few of them. It is a self-declaration made by members/candidates by signing the Professional Conduct Statement and Candidate Responsibility Statement, and these give the CFA Institute the right to revoke and suspend membership even it approves the membership/candidacy previously. IMHO there is just no ground case to justify to "file a complaint against them".

This post has been edited by kinwing: Oct 13 2011, 04:36 PM

-delete-

This post has been edited by kinwing: Oct 13 2011, 04:36 PM

No, I am a BCA majoring in accounting and finance, but I had worked in IT line to do software engineering and implementation for 2.5 years. Not sure if you could switch to financial sector after level I but it is better for you to try find financing related jobs now instead waiting until you pass level III, you should try your best anyway.

My 1st job was at an investment bank. 2nd job was IT engineering. Then only I move back to investment bank after completing level 3 .

IB boring, so went for IT lines few years and got chance to travel around the world due to project implementation, after that tire of travelling and also realised IT job required too much resourese to upgrade technical stuffs such as SAP which obsolete quite soon, so switching back IB loh .

Anyway, learnt from IT also help a bit in doing IB job for financial modelling and quantitative analysis, as I was trained up to be proficient in logical thinking and software application (such as visual for excel macro, table of content for word file, excel function such as 'If', 'Concatenate', 'Combin', etc.).

I mean each time we spend thousand of dollars to learn SAP but its new version will come out not long after we master the previous version, so to keep ourselves from being outdated we need to spend another thousands to update again and this cycle keep on going.

This is a joking .

I switched from IT to IB and my pay increased 20%, and some more in between I had not worked for 2 years before joining the IB.

There is none of the interviewers asked me the question "Did you pass all 3 exams at the 1st attempt?". Instead they asked me in case if I could not pass the exams, what will happen to me.

Btw, I wish you good luck to pass all >70 in the CFA exam, it won't be easy to achieve all >70. For my level 3 morning paper, 9 out of 10 I scored <50 .

This post has been edited by kinwing: Oct 31 2011, 11:31 AM

Wow 5.5k each level looks expensive . Hope it worth the dollar spent.

"friendly // high passing rate // career services // their lecturer are the exam markers for Level 3 too" this more looks like the content appears in an advertise flyer .