Computer based-testing has allowed our candidates greater access and flexibility by offering smaller exam settings and more exam dates, with more locations, enabling more scheduling options.

Moving through our first year of CBT has allowed us opportunities to identify the impacts these additional windows have on other aspects of the CFA Program, including ways to shorten the results timeline and release results quicker. This year, we have found that offering Level III in November has presented significant challenges for our staff—namely, to receive and reconcile data needed for the grading session, to complete the post-exam processes and for our graders, to commit to a grading session during the end-of-year holiday season.

Human-grading each Level III exam is essential to our process and our commitment to candidates, but given the timing of the November window, we are unable to reap the full benefits of computer-based testing with this schedule. And although we were able to mitigate these challenges for the November 2021 window by moving the grading session from December to January, we recognize that this is not a long-term solution.

As such, we have decided to move the Level III administration out of November and into August and to add Level II to November.

The original CFA Program CBT schedule was as follows:

In 2022, we will shift the Level III administration from the November testing window to the August testing window. We will also add a Level II administration to the November testing window in place of Level III.

In 2023 and beyond, we will formally shift the Level II administrations to May, August, and November, and the Level III administrations to February and August.

These changes allow us to offer Level III twice per year and move away from the end-of-year holiday delays. Additionally, they will allow us to increase the frequency of the Level II administration to three times per year.

Next Steps

• Registration for August 2022 Level I and Level II opened on 26 October. We plan to open registration for August 2022 Level III candidates in early December 2021.
• We are working with our CBT vendors now to secure venues and create appointments.
• We will communicate all new options to all registered candidates.
• We will update materials on our enterprise site to reflect the adjusted windows.
• We are in the process of reviewing and confirming test windows for 2023.

Download a PDF of the new windows here.