The passing % is too high?? comment.

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R24X7

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Do you think the passing percentage of 46% is too high and it should have be lower by at least 5%?
 
Passing % is irrelevant. CFAI goal is NOT to have a certain pass % but to make sure a candidate knows the material. IMO, they are pretty successful at doing that.
 
People have this @#*&ing habit of thinking that if the passing %age was higher, it means that people were given things on a silver platter......Why dont they just accept the fact that people must've tried that extra bit to pass the exams.

The CFA institute cannot doctor the percentage of people who have passed the exam....it depends on the candidates who have toiled hard to pass..

The exams are set by a very capable committee of charterholders....it is not set by toddlers.

So just accept the results and move on....there are still two levels to go.
 
Yes the passing % is not set by innocent toddlers. They are set by CFA's who knows things like NPV, IRR etc.
 
Think about it guys...

With the economy how it is, alot of people in our profession need anything they can get to FIND a job. The CFA is perfect. Not too expensive and hugely impressive.

Wasn't there like a record number of people who sat Level 1 this time? And I'll bet alot of them were unemployed or desperate to pass, so they probably studied much harder.

This pass rate actually makes perfect sense.
 
I am betting there is going to be an increasing need for CFA holders in the near future with increased financial regulation, much like the Bar and AMA. Now the administration is talking about requiring brokers to recommend products that are in the best interest of their clients and not just "suitable" as is the current standard, allowing them to pitch ARS and MBS, IPOs etc. But a leopard cant change its spots, so maybe the financial industry needs to adjust its focus to having people who have actually completed a 3 year program directing investments, vs. people who get a BA in English and study for 3 months to pass the Series 7 (what a joke).
 
i'm wondering if the higher passing rate has anything to do w/ the change from 4 multiple choice answers to 3 multiple choice.
 
Could be lot of things
1)only three choice
2)Job losses giving people lot of time to study
3)Benevolent CFA institute members

Record numbers of candidates do not increase passing percentage. I think they would depress the percentage. Desperation of the participants to pass and hence studying hard could be a factor....but for a course like CFA lot of people make hard sacrifices..so i guess people earlier were also desperate.
 
Originally, I put this in the General Discussion Forum:

Historically, the 46% pass rate is not very high at all. The data in the .pdf file below shows that the pass rates did not fall off a cliff(consistently under 50%) until 2001.

http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/pdf/candidate_results.pdf

I have a friend that completed his charter around 2000 and he says he thinks that deteriorating study habits have played a factor in the recent drop in the pass rate.

I think that the prestige of the CFA charter will survive a few years of lazy candidates. :O)
 
There's a couple of possible explanations for the higher pass rate this year.

One is that the standard setters didn't properly set the MPS (note: there's nothing that says the MPS must be <=70%. Any comments to the contrary are folk wisdom). While they've set an MPS in previous years that resulted in similar pass percentages across years, it might take a few tries for the committee to lock in the "correct" MPS (whatever that means) with the new 3 choice format).

Another is that there's a different pool this year. There are likely more candidates who have more free time due to job losses. This could equate to more time spent studying. These folks could also be over-representing experienced people rather than career changers.

Yet another possibility is that people viewed passing CFA L1 as providing more benefit in a tight market and therefore allocated more time to it.

Finally, there's the old standby that CFAI has goosed up passing rates to increase participation in L2 and L3, thereby generating more fees.

My guess (and I don't have any private information, so it's sheer speculation) is that it's a combination of the first and second factors.
 
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