What is the shortest amount of time you spent studying for any of the CFA levels?

I have a similar background to Joey - a Ph.D. (mine’s in finance), taught at university level for 9 years, and even taught about 40-50% of the L1 material on a CFA prep classes for one of the providers. Even so, I spent about 100-150 hours on L1 and between 200-250 hours on L2. With all that, I scored below 50% in one topic and 50-70% in two topics on the L1. And the wife of a colleague (he’s an accounting prof and she teaches finance) had a similar experience for L1 (and failed L2).
But the experience of some of my students who took the exam is probably a better guage. This last time around, I had five students take the L1. The undergrad curriculum at my school is heavily geared towards passing the L1 exam - we have a class in fixed income and make the finance students take two additional financial accounting classes after the principals class. But even with that, two of the five students failed - one of them had a a 3.5 GPA and one had a 3.95 GPA (that’s right - almost a perfect GPA). IMO, in both cases it was because of insufficient study time. Those that passed (and two of the three got either all sections > 70% or all but one > 70%) put in well more than 250 hours, and started either over the christmas break or by mid January.
One of the ones who failed got a band 10, and he’ll retake it in December. In his case, he’ll pass it next time (I’d take any odds on that), but he as an opportunity cost of another 150-200 hours prepping, and a compressed time frame if he wants to take the L2 next June.
So, we have a program geared towards CFA, and even with that and with a LOT of prep time, some top students (and I doubt they come any smarter than the one who failed) still failed.
Having said that, here’s an approach that one person used to study in a condensed fashion:
http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,617060,632492#msg-632492
Good luck.
 
I agree with OldMonk. To some degree you can probably wing it (and by that I mean ~100 hrs) for L1 and be fine, but that sh*t don’t fly at L2. If you choose to go this route you may very will be sitting for the L2 come June, but you will get a rude awakening come then. Which would be entirely deserved–it’d be some serious hubris if you choose to ignore all these warnings from your intellectual peers thinking they don’t apply to you. Know your Greek mythology–nothing good comes from hubris.
 
I just passed L1 with about 150 hours of study time–mostly doing practice problems. I have a finance undergrad and an MBA and work at a decent bank. Through my studies and work exp there wasn’t a whole lot on the test that I hadn’t seen before, but you really need to know this stuff how they want you to know it, with the level of detail they want. Case in point, my dad is an econ professor/PhD and I jammed him up on some CFAi econ questions. It’s really only through the study time and practice problems that 95% of people are gonna pass. As with sex, you get out what you put in.
 
Zero, Don’t listen to these guys. I didn’t study one bit, but majored in finance and passed Level 1 no problem. Studying (for Level 1) is for women and small children. After you pass, you can study a few hours a day for Level 2 because that’s a real test.
 
squirrel.master Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Zero, Don’t listen to these guys. I didn’t study
> one bit, but majored in finance and passed Level 1
> no problem. Studying (for Level 1) is for women
> and small children. After you pass, you can study
> a few hours a day for Level 2 because that’s a
> real test.
Who else gets the feeling that this is all that Zero is going to take away from this thread…
 
squirrel.master Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Zero, Don’t listen to these guys. I didn’t study
> one bit, but majored in finance and passed Level 1
> no problem. Studying (for Level 1) is for women
> and small children. After you pass, you can study
> a few hours a day for Level 2 because that’s a
> real test.
HA HA this is the Squirrel Masters first post EVER. i call BS
 
squirrel.master Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Zero, Don’t listen to these guys. I didn’t study
> one bit, but majored in finance and passed Level 1
> no problem. Studying (for Level 1) is for women
> and small children. After you pass, you can study
> a few hours a day for Level 2 because that’s a
> real test.
I’m a women and not at all impressed by that comment. Why don’t you fill us all in on how you’re progressing in the CFA programme squirrel.master?
P.S Is that your job description?
 
Just received an email from CFAI - My CFA curriculum has been shipped as of 8/20/08. Lets see if I change my attitude once I look at the entire curriculum and do a couple of practice sets.
So far in my life, I have practiced procrastination religiously and have not had problems doing well (be it HS, College, SATs, AP exams, etc)
I am simply thinking about implementing that success formula on the CFA exam. (only Level 1 - not talking about L2 and L3). From your experiences it seems like I am in for a rude awakening - so I might have to get my act straight and start studying.
 
>>So far in my life, I have practiced procrastination religiously and have not had problems doing well (be it HS, College, SATs, AP exams, etc)
Add the GMAT to that which I did fairly well on and I’m with you, but the CFA is MUCH harder to get through than any of those things.
 
juventurd Wrote:
——————————————————-
> >>So far in my life, I have practiced
> procrastination religiously and have not had
> problems doing well (be it HS, College, SATs, AP
> exams, etc)
>
> Add the GMAT to that which I did fairly well on
> and I’m with you, but the CFA is MUCH harder to
> get through than any of those things.
Thanks. This is what I needed. Someone with similar experience as me, who can attest to the 200 hours of study time recommendation despite doing well in the other exams.
 
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