Well, it’s been quite a year. To top it off, the CFA Institute made a recent announcement. This global organization, responsible for administering the CFA Exam, recently announced the CFA Exam December 2020 postponed in certain cities worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the cities are in major metropolitan areas.
Many of you may painfully remember that in March 2020 the CFA Institute postponed all CFA June 2020 exams. Anticipating that the worst of the virus would be behind us by December, like many others, they were wrong.
Fade in, fade out, and large numbers of CFA candidates are faced with a similar dilemma to earlier this spring.
Should you keep studying? Is it time to move on?
Wait…What Announcement?!
To be crystal clear, with the CFA December 2020 Exam postponed, the CFA Institute did NOT actually cancel all exams, in all geographies. But, just exams in specific cities.
Please see their website for a list of exact cities.
Along with this news, unfortunately it also too late to change your test center if you had originally planned on taking your exam in one of these effected metro areas. The result is that your CFA Exam will have to wait until the new year.
Hence, the next important date on your calendar should be this coming October 20th.
That is the deadline for postponed June 2020 candidates. These candidates that have not re-registered, and those who want to move out of the December 2020 exam, and register for any 2021 exam, should note this deadline.
CFA Exam December 2020 Postponed: What Should You Do Now?
When it comes to advice on how to spend large portions of your life (like on, say, studying for the CFA Exam), general advice is usually for the birds. Everyone’s situation is unique so consider your specific situation.
With that caveat, we always like to share our opinion with interested readers 🙂
So here it goes.
As you know at this point, studying for the CFA Exam takes a whole lot of time. Having not only just studied for the CFA Exam for June 2020, but then having studied for that same exam in December 2020, only to have it postponed again to some future unknown date, many people have “wasted” a lot of time studying.
Our advice is: keep going.
As life-long learners ourselves, and from every student we’ve tutored along the way, we’ve never met anyone that regretted knowing more than they used to.
If you’re personal circumstances prevent you from continuing on, then definitely pause and take time for yourself, and/or your family.
However, if you can squeeze in the time, the CFA designation will not only help out your general knowledge in finance, but your career prospects too (particularly among young CFA candidates).
Timing Can Be Everything
One thing that made the CFA Exam so challenging beyond its content, is its schedule.
Up until now, the routine was that if you failed one exam then it could set your progress back a year. For example, if you failed CFA Level 2 in June 2018, then you couldn’t retake it until June 2019. This meant that the earliest that you could take the CFA Level 3 exam would be June 2020.
And, we all know that anyone in that situation is still having issues.
Fortunately, that is all changing in 2021.
The December 2020 exam is the last paper-based exam. Thereafter, the CFA Institute will be switching to computer-based exams. Furthermore, the CFA Exam will be offered more times per year at every level.
- For starters, CFA Level 1 will be offered in February, May, August, and November
- CFA Level 2 will be offered in May and August (February and August in 2022)
- CFA Level 3 will be offered in May and November
Although we have no crystal ball, we anticipate a significant increase in interest in the CFA Exams with this change.
All in all, despite the canceled December 2020 exams in some cities, the future for CFA candidates looks bright.
At Professional Exam Tutoring, we recommend that you stick with it as best you can. Persistence will help you so that you are ready for when the exams are offered with increased frequency. This will increase your odds of achieving the much-lauded CFA Charterholder designation. Good luck!