Access Scholarship

Question

Hi everyone,

New to this site. Looks like a great resource. Wish I had known about it when I was studying for level 1.

I had a quick question to anyone whose been denied for the access scholarship recently. I was considering applying for the scholarship, but the timing of the decision on the scholarship and the pricing of the registration don't make sense. Maybe I'm missing something here though..

Early Registration is $650 - if you receive the scholarship, it is only $250. Great!

However, if you are denied the scholarship, the new registration fee is $930 - they will give you a credit for $150 because of the decision comes after early registration has ended.

So am I correct in assuming that by applying to the access scholarship, I am risking having to pay $130 more than early registration in hopes of reducing the costs by $400?

Am I missing something?

Thanks,
D

christine · Answer

Seems so. The implementation of this scholarship could be better, but conceptually you can see their reasoning:"The CFA Program Access Scholarship is a needs-based opportunity for those unable to afford the full price of the enrollment and registration fees."So theoretically, if you were applying for the scholarship, you're unlikely to be able to register for the CFA exams if you didn't get the scholarship, so the risk of an additional $130 would be moot. On the other hand, if CFA Institute credited the full difference (i.e. $280), they create a loophole where anyone who missed the Early Registration deadline could simply apply for the scholarship, get rejected, and get a credit back to effectively reduce their $930 fee to $650 again.