GMAT vs CFA Exam?

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MooseDrool

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I am currently a Level III Candidate and will be taking the GMAT later this summer. For those that have taken both how would you compare the GMAT to the CFA exam? I realize its not apples to apples, but just as a general comparison in terms of difficulty.

Thanks, I appreciate the help.
 
u'r kidding me right...what kind of question is this... And u are L3 candidate. There is no god.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Monday, June 12, 2006 at 03:27PM by Aquarius.
 
If you can think logically and rationally, you will do well in GMAT. It is way way way easier than CFA exam.
 
sn8eye Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you can think logically and rationally, you
> will do well in GMAT. It is way way way easier
> than CFA exam.

I disagree. I took the GMAT when I was relatively young and went to b school, so maybe I've just become better at taking tests since then (still waiting on CFA LI results), but I thought that the GMAT was harder. On the GMAT, you're tested on irrelvant bs and you have to answer the questions in order - miss an early question and you could be screwed. On the CFA exams, you study somewhat more relevant topics, you can rely, to an extent, on some real-world knowledge, and you can focus your efforts on your strengths (during study and when taking the exam).

I'm with shade - take a practice exam to gauge your performance.
 
they are not comparable. one is pass fail, one is a measure of aptitude.

both are hard.

I practiced hard for the GMAT, I studied hard for the CFA - from a gross hours perspective, the CFA blows the GMAT away....
 
Thanks for your comments. I've never looked at doing the GMAT, so I wasn't sure if I should be putting in the same kind of gross hours of preparation that I've done for the CFA. It sounds like I'll know better after taking a practice exam.
 
The GMAT is not at all like the CFA. It is an aptitude test, much like the SAT. In fact, most people could probably take their SAT score, divide by 2 and come close to their GMAT score, at least within 20-40 points.

If you are intelligent and did well on the SAT, there is little need to study for the GMAT at all. The only preparation I did was to take one practice exam to familiarize myself with the format and the types of questions I would see. I scored a 750, which is exactly half my SAT score and the reason for my comment above.
 
Moose:


The GMAT is a statiscal representation as to how well you will do in graduate school.

The higher your GMAT score, the more likely you are to do well in graduate school. Obviously, top-tier grad schools have high GMAT score requirements because the curriculum is that much harder over po-dunk schools.


Tobias:
Good insight about the SAT/GMAT score connection. My GMAT score was almost exactly 1/2 my SAT score. Weird. Thanks for the info! Congratulations, by the way, on getting a 1500 on your SAT.
 
Have taken both, they are totally different.

For CFA, you need to study 13 books and compete with 20,000 people.
For GMAT, you need to study 2-3 books and compete with 200,000+ people.

CFA has a 40% pass rate.
To get into good school, you need to be in the top 10% for GMAT.

CFA exam is conducted only once a year, if you screw-up, you wait one year.
GMAT can be taken whenever you desire.

In summary, I would say, a high SAT score, a high GMAT score, a high GPA and a CFA performance ... all can be loosely correlated... If you do well in one, you can reasonably do well in the other.
 
First off they test different things. If you spend enough time studying for the CFA you *will* pass if you memorize everything.

That said, if you were to put in 750+ hours of study for the GMAT, pay $4000+ (ie. CFA books, classes, etc.) ans stress about it on message boards, AND are a native english speaker then you should do very, very, incredibly well.
 
That is misleading !!.
You cannot pass CFA exam if you just "memorize everything".
It takes more than rote learning to pass CFA. Understanding the subject matter is key to passing CFA.

I know because I've taken both exams.
 
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