CFA exams are postponed: "I want to die"

As the coronavirus runs on, things that seemed possible a few weeks ago are becoming more predictable. Among them: the postponement of the CFA exams.

In a statement today, the CFA Institute said it has, 'made the unprecedented decision to postpone the June 2020 CFA Program Exam administrations globally.'

The Institute says candidates registered for the June exams will be transferred to one of the next two exam administrations. - In other words, December 2020 or June 2021.

For CFA exam candidates who had been wondering whether the exams would be cancelled, the decision does not appear to be entirely welcome. "I want to die," said one candidate on the CFA Reddit forum. "This is just so heart breaking to all of us who have been studying for the past several months," said another. Someone else just wrote a lot of expletives. The fact that the CFA Institute isn't offering a refund and is simply offering registration for future exams has added to the upset.

The main issue, though, seems to be that December is so far into the future that any revision done so far will be wasted and candidates will have to begin revising all over again. "I am not sure I will remember anything in December," reflects one. "I’ve been waking up at 4am daily, even on weekends and getting only five hours of sleep everyday just so that I can manage my work and study at the same time," says another who says the fact that people who hadn't begun revising are now celebrating is especially galling.

Given that plenty of CFA candidates are now working from home some candidates are complaining that the virus lockdown was a great opportunity to get ahead of the CFA material. "Time to play some videogames baby," says one.

The upside is clearly that there is now more time to study for an exam that will happen at least four months later than expected. - "This is like having the clocks rewound to September 19, 2019," reflects one candidate. However, as others point out, there's no guarantee that the virus will have gone by December 2020 when the same could happen again. 

"I've put off having damn kids because of this program," says one candidate. Parenthood has now been shunted further into the future than before.

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Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash