"Will CFA become the new MBA?" (The Financial Times)

just over +100,000 CFA charterholders in 50 years of the program, growing roughly at 5,000 every year
+140,000 new MBA grads EVERY YEAR, mostly from garbage no-name institutions and 1 year MBA programs,
I’m going to say NO.
 
^exactly
I hope CFA never even closely resembles MBA. MBAs are a dime a dozen. Although CFA Charterholders look to be growing exponentially in the past 10 years.
 
Article would have been more interesting if it said whether the CFA would become the next top 5 MBA….otherwise, if it just becomes the MBA (more generically speaking) then that’s probably a bad thing because fewer people will care about the CFA than they do now
 
I would argue that the CFA is already more prestigious whan some lower ranked MBA programs. However, breaking into a more reputable tier would be much more difficult if not impossible.
 
That picture in the article showing people taking the test is crazy! Is that how seating is in some of your exams??! People are just too close and looking left/right in a 3 hour period is almost impossible! thats a serious recipe for getting accused of cheating….Makes me actually appreciate my test centre a little more lol.
 
My self-induced PCP paranoia is reaching absurd levels. Watching USA/Germany today, kept hearing people chanting “USA USA USA” … my brain kept hearing “PCP PCP PCP”
 
All of the bulge-bracket firms compete with one another to hire graduates of top MBA programs like Columbia, MIT, Wharton, LBS, Chicago, etc.
When are these presitgious banks going to compete to hire new CFA charterholders?
I’d estimate… never.
This is the difference between the CFA and a top MBA program.
 
sonofthesoil wrote:
That picture in the article showing people taking the test is crazy! Is that how seating is in some of your exams??! People are just too close and looking left/right in a 3 hour period is almost impossible! thats a serious recipe for getting accused of cheating….Makes me actually appreciate my test centre a little more lol.
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I guess it is probably a small venue like hotel or so, with limited facilities.
But, no, my test centre was different
 
Wendy wrote:
All of the bulge-bracket firms compete with one another to hire graduates of top MBA programs like Columbia, MIT, Wharton, LBS, Chicago, etc.
When are these presitgious banks going to compete to hire new CFA charterholders?
I’d estimate… never.
This is the difference between the CFA and a top MBA program.
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Yea, but they’ll compete for the Top MBA w/ CFA even more, hopefully.
 
Any thoughts on how impactful having a CFA Charter would be on a top-15 MBA application? Thinking about applying to Columbia after finishing the CFA program.
 
lxwarr30 wrote:Yea, but they’ll compete for the Top MBA w/ CFA even more, hopefully.
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Whuh? Who? Does not parse.
 
CFA and MBA serve different purposes. I haven’t read the article, but for this comparison to make any sense at all, you would have to limit the scope to financial companies and/or (possibly) corporate finance roles.
There is no marketing, no org behavior (other than governance), no learning how to operate in teams. If I wanted a regional marketer at Coca Cola, or a development officer at a tech startup, the CFA would be nearly useless.
 
Wendy wrote:
lxwarr30 wrote:Yea, but they’ll compete for the Top MBA w/ CFA even more, hopefully.
Click to expand...
Whuh? Who? Does not parse.
Click to expand...
Sorry, you said that large investment firms compete to hire Top MBA students. I was saying that hopefully they’ll compete for the Top MBA students who have their charter or progression even more.
 
swatbsba wrote:
Any thoughts on how impactful having a CFA Charter would be on a top-15 MBA application? Thinking about applying to Columbia after finishing the CFA program.
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This is the answer I got from a current CBS student. It won’t do much to get you in, but it will help you stand out during recruiting.
 
lxwarr30 wrote:…hopefully they’ll compete for the Top MBA students who have their charter or progression even more.
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Ah, good point; I believe that that is true.
Surprisingly, bulge bracket banks are more-than-willing to hire top-MBA graduates that have no finance experience at all.
A top-MBA graduate that already holds the CFA designation should be very-sought-after indeed.
The reason that this doesn’t happen too often is that most CFA charterholders are unwilling to incur the further expense of an MBA, and because most finance coursework would be redundant to what they’ve already learned.
 
Wendy wrote:
lxwarr30 wrote:…hopefully they’ll compete for the Top MBA students who have their charter or progression even more.
Click to expand...
Ah, good point; I believe that that is true.
Surprisingly, bulge bracket banks are more-than-willing to hire top-MBA graduates that have no finance experience at all.
A top-MBA graduate that already holds the CFA designation should be very-sought-after indeed.
The reason that this doesn’t happen too often is that most CFA charterholders are unwilling to incur the further expense of an MBA, and because most finance coursework would be redundant to what they’ve already learned.
Click to expand...
I hope to be one of these exceptions soon. I’m surprised that more people with the CFA or progression don’t view MBA as a route to go if they’re not content. The CFA costs in term of money is not that high, but taking on debt to get a MBA is scary. I think it’s a good investment if you get into somewhere good.
 
How about leveraging the network of CFA Charterholders for breaking into IB without an IB background. Not necessarily looking at BBs … a boutique would be fine (and, depending on the firm, preferable).
 
Also, I don’t care much that I’d be starting at the analyst level. Looking for a clean cut career change.
 
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