CFA Scholarship vs early bird registration deadlines

Question

I'm preparing to take my Level 1 in February 2022 and the early registration deadline is closing on August 10. But the CFA scholarship window has not been opened yet.

So please can you guide me - should I wait for the scholarship application window to open to register for the CFA exam, but by then the early registration deadline may be closed?
 	And if I wait and apply for the scholarship, and don't get it, will I be still able to register at early bird price and take my exams in February?

Zee Tan · Accepted Answer

As long as you can still register for the exam, you should be offered the early-bird fee.

Using your example, here are the registration deadlines for Feb'22 and May'22:

Feb'22:

Early reg: 10 Aug 2021
 	Final deadline: 1 Nov 2021

May'22

Early reg: 1 Nov 2021
 	Final deadline: 1 Feb 2022

If the scholarship results are released in December, the Feb'22 registration deadlines are all closed, so you won't be able to register for Feb'22. However you will be able to register for May'22 at early-bird rate, even though the early registration deadline (1 Nov 2021) has passed.

aryang885@gmail.com · Answer

Hi zee can you tell what does next exam means? I'm planning to give level 1 in February 2022 so if the results comes out in December will I still be able to register at early bird price for the February attempt?

Zee Tan · Answer

If you're talking about the Access scholarship, we literally have no idea when this will open up for applications. So it would be impossible to say whether you should be waiting for it or not. I wouldn't wait, but your decision may be different depending on how badly you want the scholarship.
 	All scholarship applicants will be offered the early registration fee for the next exam, so you won't miss out on the early registration fee because you were waiting for scholarship results.

Hope that helps!