September 15th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
Update #3: 09/18/2008 2:16PM PDT: Reports are coming in that exam results letters have arrived in the mail. Check the comments below!
Update #2: 09/16/2008 2:42PM PDT: Carol Lee Roberts posted again to the Financial-Planning.com discussion boards. Among other things, she wrote, “There will be an update posted on the Board website today and I will also post the content here.” Click here to read her latest remarks.
The CFP Board website has the following statement:
NOTICE: Results from the July 2008 CFP® Certification Examination were mailed on September 16, 2008 to the preferred mailing address of each exam taker. Results will be posted to the secure online CFP Board accounts of exam takers on or about September 22, 2008. Exam results will NOT be released over the phone, by fax or by e-mail. CFP Board wishes all exam takers the best as they receive their results.
Update #1: 09/15/2008 2:21PM PDT: Carol Lee Roberts, Managing Director of Examinations and Education at the CFP Board, has addressed concerns over the delay of exam results on the Financial-Planning.com discussion boards. Click here to read Carol’s response.
Carol’s comments refer to an email sent to registered candidates on August 15. I didn’t receive the email. The last message I received was the August 14th email about the Exam Candidate Questionnaire notification that was sent in error. Other commenters at FPPad also did not receive the August 15 email. What about you?
Finally, I have some solid new news related to the release of the July 2008 CFP® Exam results!
The odd thing is (perhaps not so odd considering the past) that my exam review provider, Ken Zahn, has been more proactive on the communication front than the CFP Board.
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September 3rd, 2008 Bill Winterberg
Update 09/15/08 8:53AM PDT: If you landed here on a search, click here to read the latest post about exam results!
Just a quick note to those nervous readers who sat for the July 2008 CFP® Certification Examination.
I received a note on anxiety over the test results from Ken Zahn and his staff. Here’s the important part!
As we approach the end of your wait, you may be concerned about the release of the exam results. Fortunately, your anxiety will end shortly. According to CFP Board …
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August 26th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
I finally managed to read the recent interview of Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Portfolio.com that I blogged about a few weeks ago. I mentioned that Mr. Taleb is scheduled to deliver one of the three keynote sessions during the FPA Boston 2008 annual conference.
Now there are a few things that Mr. Taleb said during his conversation with Lloyd Grove that I think might rub a number of FPA members the wrong way. Here are a few of the things that stood out.
Taleb On Ties
Grove: And this “hating ties” business, and I know you’re being funny, but you distrust people who wear ties?
Taleb: It correlates rather well with incompetence.
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August 14th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
One of the FPA NexGen members posted a message to the general email list about a new initiative called OneVoiceRIA. The primary goal of OneVoiceRIA is to raise public awareness of Registered Investment Advisers.
Visit OneVoiceRIA at their website, www.onevoiceria.com.
The organizers of OneVoiceRIA include:
- Chris Cordaro, a founder of RegentAtlantic
- Tom Orecchio, Chairman of NAPFA
- Gobind Daryanani, co-creator of iRebal
- Paula Hogan, Board of Directors of NAPFA
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August 12th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
Another update as of 8/14/08, see below and also read comments from Carol Lee Roberts, CFP®, Managing Director of Examinations and Education for the CFP Board.
Initially I wasn’t going to say anything about my recent experience with the CFP Board and some of the technical issues I have encountered over the last few months. But today the third issue came up, and I’m beginning to get concerned that operations inside the CFP Board aren’t going as smoothly as possible.
Back in June (after the exam registration deadline), I received an email message from the CFP Board that indicated either my payment or my registration was incomplete. Calls flooded the Board from concerned exam applicants. It turned out the email was sent in error to most (all?) applicants and we were told not to worry; our registration for the exam was not in jeopardy. Nevertheless, be still my beating heart!
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August 7th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
Earlier this summer I traveled to Los Angeles to attend Ken Zahn’s Live Review course to prepare for the July 2008 CFP® Certification Exam. As luck would have it, Ken Zahn himself was the instructor for my four-day review course.
Ken Zahn’s “territory” mainly consists of southeastern United States locations, but each exam cycle Ken flies out to Los Angeles to instruct those of us on the west coast. In other words, he’s well known east of the Mississippi as one of the best exam review course providers, but he’s still competing with Kaplan, Dalton, Keir, and the College for Financial Planning on the west coast. Zahn’s review course fee is $925 plus $8 for miscellaneous fees, which I believe is close to what most of the other live review programs charge. Internet-based classes are cheaper, but they’re not in-person classes.
So how good was the review course?
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August 4th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
Back in April, NAPFA announced that its membership passed 2,000 for the first time. Click the links for coverage from Investment News and Financial Advisor Magazine.
However, the figure of 2,000 isn’t made up by just financial advisers.
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August 2nd, 2008 Bill Winterberg
One piece of new information I picked up at the NexGen 2008 Conference is the presence of new financial planning channels on YouTube.
First on the YouTube bandwagon was NAPFA as they launched a channel, NAPFAVideos, in April. A few months later in June, FPA launched their channel, FPATelevision.
In addition to the launch of the new channel, FPA has announced a video submission contest. Video entries should address the contest theme How NOT to do Financial Planning.
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July 14th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
I’m going to be out of the office for the remainder of July. First, I’ll be out the remainder of this week preparing for the CFP® Certification Examination held on Friday and Saturday. I feel well prepared after the Ken Zahn Live Review course I took at the end of June. I hope to post additional details about the review course and associated materials in August.
Following the exam, I’ll be away will be attending the upcoming FPA NexGen 2008 conference in St. Cloud, MN July 25-27. If you’ll be at the conference too, make sure to find me and say hi. I’ll be one of the few with a red goatee in the audience (check out my LinkedIn profile for a picture).
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July 8th, 2008 Bill Winterberg
I have Angie Herbers’ blog, The Fast Track, linked over in my blog roll in the left sidebar (it’s also in my Google Reader subscription). I know Angie and appreciate her insight on the myriad of practice management issues that most maturing firms encounter during various stages of growth.
Today she posted an update to her blog about the state of events affecting the CFP Board that resonates with me. As most know through my post about attending Ken Zahn’s Live Review course, I am preparing for this July’s CFP® Certification Exam, so it is very important that the integrity and awareness of the certification be held in a positive light (I shouldn’t even be blogging, I should be studying! But I digress).
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