Level I: Pass
For several weeks, the CFA Institute had been emailing me, telling that Scores Will Be Available OnLine on January 23, 2008, at 9:00 AM ET.
And so, Sunday, just as Tynes lined up to take that fateful kick, the monks loaded up the oxcarts, securing the last of the packages for their trip back down the road the Charlottesville.
Now, when you log in, the page is dominated by a large ASCII text table, breaking down your results into 9 categories and 3 results, <50%, 50-70%, and >70%, and they expect you, at bleary-hundred hours, to see and interpret the difference between this: - and this: *. Hmmm, that looks like a lot of these: *, over in the >70% column...
And then, just when you're asking yourself, "So do I get to the next Level, or was I slain by the troll hiding around the corner?" you see, not in big flashing neon red, but in dark, understated, color-scheme compliant blue, the letters:
Level I: Pass
This is a good thing. This exam represented a considerable investment in time and money over the last 6 months, and the soccer-like pace of the grading didn't add to the anticipation so much as deaden it. In fact, all those "*"s over on the right were correct. The only subjects on which I didn't pass individually were Derivatives and Alternative Assets, so naturally I'll spend the next five months obsessing over those, wonder where, oh where I could have gone wrong.
Five months? Yes, because that's when the Level II exam is.