It's official: AF has higher passing rate!!

B

Bleeck

New member
Joined
Jun 18, 2026
Messages
0
Reaction score
0
Allright so I had a look at http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,751143,page=1 where a bunch of AF regulars signed a ‘pledge’ that they would pass the level 2 examination. It was signed the week before the exam in the L2 forum.
Now since many people assume that AF regulars have a higher passing rate than the global average I checked these names with the results to see what the passing rate was.
Result:
54% of these people passed for sure. I could not find 27,5% and 18,5% of them failed. That is higher than the global average. Even if you count the unknowns as fails.
From the top of my head I selected the names of those of whom I am sure they were regular participants in discussions and the pass rate of those people was 66% with 19,5% failing and 12% unknown.
So you can say that the AF passing rate is higher than the global average although it is not as high as many assumed when it was discussed a few weeks ago.
(see below the names and an ‘x’ for those of whom I think they were regulars during the study period)
bannisja fail x
barthezz fail x
Bradleyz fail x
CFAdetroit fail x
deep2002 fail x
dinesh-sundrani fail x
jogging fail x
planner fail x
so_fresh fail
Alayle fail
CFABangkok fail
cfabermy fail
dnoyelles fail
epoh fail
heightscapital fail
Kakane fail
kellyc319 fail
maile fail
nisha_p fail
3_letters pass x
AFJunkie pass x
bhaiyyu pass x
busprof pass x
caspian pass x
cfasf1 pass x
Danteshek pass x
GMOfDen pass x
gurjeet pass x
ilvino pass x
jbisback pass x
jeremyb pass x
kabhii pass x
maratikus pass x
McLeod81 pass x
mcpass pass x
mumukada pass x
mwvt9 pass x
N.VanCandidate pass x
nattyg pass x
ng30 pass x
Niblita75 pass x
petetini pass x
plyon pass x
SerGrey pass x
Smarshy pass x
wanderingcfa pass x
akanska pass
Blkmoon pass
budfox427 pass
cding pass
Chicago PMA pass
DblA pass
eschizzle pass
Fabib pass
gauravku pass
gz2nyc pass
ilkandi pass
jeks pass
JustPass pass
LICandidate pass
mhannebert pass
oagra pass
ozzy609 pass
patkeenan pass
phBOOM pass
Pinto11 pass
rekooh pass
sbugrad89 pass
spilker pass
Squirrel24 pass
superchef pass
TA05 pass
tcasperite pass
Wenebest pass
aladak unknown x
Dyslexic unknown x
goes to eleven unknown x
thepinkman unknown x
Turkish unknown x
caroline23 unknown
clipper1 unknown
defacto unknown
doseweissen unknown
iblees82 unknown
I’llmontecarloyoursimulation unknown
isabel unknown
jaas unknown
london1 unknown
miker2800 unknown
missjovi unknown
patatasbravas unknown
ptrick73 unknown
rhuldisch unknown
rong19 unknown
sabdullah1979 unknown
SeanC unknown
smokin’hot unknown
stephw14 unknown
thrlskr unknown
tingsheng unknown
uclaCFAchick unknown
ucsbfiji unknown
 
54% and 66% (for regulars) seems to be low…..the average expectation was high from the earlier threads (before results). I had too thought of higher pass rate for AFers.
 
if you assume that your missing data has the same pass rate as your known data, you get about 75%, which is what a lotbof people expect of forum regulars.
If you assume that there is some reporting bias (non responses reflecting unwillingness / embarassment about not passing, the rate is lower.
So for L2, this year’s AF pass rate is somewhere between 54% and 81.5%, and most likely between 65% and 75% (the 65 figure is just a subjective guess here).
Interesting, but of course this is a sample for only one test and one year.
 
I think 95% of the regulars pass the test. AF has a way high PASS percentage as compared to what CFAI has to offer officially.
 
Dinesh, don’t the numbers above say otherwise?
 
You might want to consider incorporating number of posts into the above statistics. That would uncover the people who spend too much time posting on AF and not enough time studying…
 
Dyslexic unknown x -
i passed. if it helps further skew the stats
 
DanteShak i definately agree with what you say :)
Some times people participate here to almost counter productive levels.
 
You have me marked as a pass up above and I failed. Need to drop those stats a bit.
 
I passed too, but I wasn’t a regular until after the exam. Personally I think posting on material takes away from my study routine; to me its distracting. I have a hard time getting my attention focused and posting would only take me out of the groove. I did participate regularly once I was in review mode.
 
Bleeck Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Even if you count
> the unknowns as fails.
>
>
Ok, this irregular lurker passed. I guess that’s 1 more basis point….
 
GetSetGo Wrote:
——————————————————-
> DanteShak i definately agree with what you say :)
>
> Some times people participate here to almost
> counter productive levels.
I’ve noticed that about myself. I tend to stop talking on AF during the last 1-2 weeks prior to the exam.
 
not a distraction for me. i post quite a bit, but i shut it down when i have to read. besides, every year there are at least 2 questions on the test that were gimmes because they had been discussed on this forum right before the test… what was it this year? growth duration model. mwvt was involved in that discussion. after you guys got into that discussion, i realized i didn’t know sht about it so i reread that section and sure enough, it was on the test. i almost did the af fist pump. so thanks for that.
 
Interesting stuff.
But you can’t make statistics like this. It’s biased by too many factors and the result may be misleading.
 
I am 90% sure that I wouldn’t have passed L1 and L2 without AF. In fact, I don’t even think I would have continued after level 1.
 
Yeah, I agree. Very difficult to gauge AF’s impact on the user.
I’m not a heavy user, but I lurk a hell of a lot. Don’t talk about the material very much, I use AF mostly to kick my a$$ into gear, not for help with problems. I don’t have any friends in the finance world at my level so I use this as a motivational tool and to realize just how far behind I am.
I’d say 60%ish for avid users and 55% for avid lurkers is reasonable. I wouldn’t put it all the way at 75% b/c there are alot of people on here who’ve failed multiple times or use AF just because they love using forums.
Good post and research though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top