<p>I'm new to the board and felt like I could get in on this discussion fairly easily. I am 24, a Mathematics major, and I'm currently enrolled in a Masters of Accounting program at UNC Chapel Hill. It is a one-year program for non-accounting majors, so I fit the bill perfectly!! I will be taking the CPA exam in the late spring & early summer of this year, right before beginning work in the finance department of Bank of America. Down the road, I also hope to take the CFA examination.</p>
<p>Before deciding to take this route, I took the first actuarial exam without studying and did fairly well, then began studying for the second but never took the test. I now feel as if my background with finance & time-value-of-money would be sufficient to pass Actuaial Exam II (FM).</p>
<p>The reason I came about this thread is that I didn't know where someone with BOTH skill-sets could one day end up. I feel that I'll be quite successful in my career, as you all will, but there really is no direct path in which I MUST follow. I feel that these three designations complement one another quite well, and that it is a matter of credentials plus your personal character qualities that will ultimately dictate where you end up in your career. Never forget that your personality speaks volumes over your nerdiness in interview processes, as well as once you are hired.</p>
<p>In conclusion, each designation is VERY noteworthy to a prospective employer.</p>
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Before deciding to take this route, I took the first actuarial exam without studying and did fairly well, then began studying for the second but never took the test. I now feel as if my background with finance & time-value-of-money would be sufficient to pass Actuaial Exam II (FM).
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<p>you must be a genius. typical math curriculum doesn't really cover exam P; i am curious how you actually knew what the actuarial lingos were (hence what the exam questions were asking), let alone did fairly well on it, without studying. if you did well on the first exam without studying, then you can probably be one of the fastest to become a fellow and make as much as 250K in 5 years or so. i am curious why you even bother to study accounting. to me, it's a very interesting choice, considering actuarial career, not accounting, is a much more natural path for a "mathwiz" like you. hope the one above isn't your first and only post here cos i'd love to hear more story from you. ;)</p>
<p>Is there a point in getting both a Actuarial degree and an accounting degree? In other words, can getting both help in any way when getting a job in either field? Because right now I don't know which field I want to go into yet so I'm thinking of just doing both since I can graduate in 4 years anyways. But if there is absolutely no point in doing both, I won't.</p>
<p>Maybe the 30-40 is for first time candidates. Not that it matters…comparing pass rates is only relevant if you have an idea of the characteristics of each candidate sample.</p>
<p>The reason the CFA is harder is because there is considerably less documentation to support your studies than the CPA. You can go to any book store and buy a stack of books to assist in your studies for the CPA, however, look for a single book on the CFA exam, and you won’t find ONE! </p>
<p>The CFA exam is harder because and this is my opinion its uncharted territory for many students. It’s an exam that has only one or two study sources, and they’re both so intimidating and costly that anyone who undertakes CFA does so at a considerable risk in. This is by CFA design. However, and expected.</p>
<p>The pure fact is this - anyone, in my opinion, can pass the CPA exam with proper study but only a select few may pass the CFA even with ample study. However, again this is more due to lack of industry and media exposure, which would lead to more suitable and condensed study materials than anything else.</p>
<p>Passed CPA on the first try, passed CFA level I on the first try in 2 1/2 months. Difficulty of material is about the same. But CFA is slightly more difficult because of the sheer mass of information you have to prepare for.</p>
<p>Haven’t taken either. But seems to me that everybody taking the CPA probably has had 30+ credit hours of accounting aimed at teaching people CPA material(at least in my state). I don’t know what the CFA requires but I doubt the average person walks into it with as much default preparation as the average CPA test taker.</p>
<p>The CPA requires having at least 150 Units, which is equal to having a Masters plus you have to have 24+ units in business and 24+ units in accounting.<br>
The CFA in some cases has a pass rates at 80% plus.<br>
The avg test taker for the CFA includes people who never went to college, dance history majors, wanna be portf managers, you name it.
The avg person going in for the CPA exam will have a background that’s at a level to basically be able to teach at a college.
Also remember the State gov’t gives the licence to a CPA. Not so with the CFA.
Why do people do the CFA? Imagine their frame of mind…they hear about some fund manager making $5MM a year and think all they need to do is drop 3-4K and sign up for the cfa and they can make that kind of Millions. It doesn’t require accounting or any business knowledge at all to sign up, all it takes is the waveO’s to cut a big fat check to some guy getting millions and millions off yearly renewals. Is the CFA a scam, you betcha.</p>
<p>Vanguard, get a brain. 80% pass rate plus? Nice joke. Just because it doesn’t require a business major to enroll in doesn’t take away from the fact they test on that information.</p>
<p>The comparison is tricky because CPA requires you to have an accounting degree at the first place. Of course, it would be more fair to compare both tests for someone with no exposure to either, say an engineering or Englsih grad. </p>
<p>But I am pretty certain about this one: for an accounting major, the consensus is CFA is harder. My friend, a CPA and passed CFA 1 last year, just told me last week CFA 1 is about the same as the whole CPA. He’s studying CFA 2. I thnk Dawgie had similar experience.</p>
<p>Guys, nobody said here that to obtain a CFA, it takes much longer time. First, you have to have a bachelors degree and then 4 years of working experience in the financial field. CPA - 5 years of college and 1 year of working experience. Moreover, you can retake a CPA exam every two or three month, however you can retake a CFA only once a year. As I think :</p>
<p>Ryanbis wrote: “There are four parts to the CPA exam and each part currently has a pass rate of 30-40%.”</p>
<p>The CFA has a nearly similar pass rate: 35%. So If one is using pass rates as one’s measure of difficulty, I don’t see how a person can say the CPA is clearly harder than the CFA.</p>
<p>Dawgie,
No - I created this account because I’m considering taking one of these exams. Do these message boards not provide helpful information? I figure that participating in a discussion about these tests might be helpful in my decision making process. Is there something wrong with that?</p>
<p>The CFA is harder in from what I hear. It takes 2-3 years to complete and has low pass rates as the tests progress. Plus seeing the number of people who pass the CPA compared to CFA. There are more CPAs than CFAs in the world.</p>
<p>Not to dispute the notion that the CFA is harder, but if the CPA pass rate is 40% for each part and the CFA level I is 35%, that doesn’t really refute the point. Taking and passing four tests with a 40% pass rate and passing all four is harder than passing one with a pass rate of 35%. That’s like saying rolling a dice and getting a 5 or 6 is less probable than rolling four dice and getting a 4 or above on all 4. </p>
<p>Yes I understand that the 40% passing AUD are probably the same ones passing BEC, REG, and FAR, and that there may be a case that those that have done both tend to consider the CFA harder…but pass rates are really a poor measure.</p>