CFA Results Day

The CFAI (Chartered Financial Analyst Institute) released its results for the CFA Level I June exam this morning. I was quite nervous the whole night, as I woke up several times and even had a dream (nightmare?) about getting the results.

At 9 AM EST, I wasn't able to actually access the web site because there was simply too much traffic. I was finally able to get in at 9:16, although it was still slow. The first thing you see is the pass rate for Level I as a whole, which was 46% this year. That is higher than the rate the past few years, which hovered around 35-40%. This year the CFA Institute threw in a monkey wrench by switching the multiple choice format to include just 3 answer choices instead of the usual 4. They are notoriously secretive about what constitutes a passing score, although the general consensus is 70%+ overall will result in a pass.

They also have a quirky way of delivering the results, as instead of telling you what your score was, they break up your results by question category and by a score quadrant (>70%, 51-70%, and <=50%). I passed, and it seems I may have even overstudied, as shown below.

One of the sexiest things I've seen in a while, which is really quite pathetic

I'm not sure if I'll take Level II next June yet. It truly was a lot of work studying for Level I, but I'm glad I did it because it solidified some of the concepts I'm learning in b-school. For now though, I'm thinking cigars are in order for tonight.