How to appeal if your CFA result is close to passing?

There isn’t an appeals process I’m afraid. The ethics adjustment is applied automatically so there’s no need for any appeal.

In past (paper-based) exams candidates used to be able to request a retabulation, i.e. request that your score be calculated again.

However I notice that CFA Institute’s help pages on retabulation have been removed, which likely means for CBT exams retabulation is not an option anymore.

Quoting CFA Institute:

Our grading systems have robust quality assurance processes. We would not publish results in which we are not confident. Note that scores that were very close to the minimum passing score may appear to brush against or slightly overlap the minimum passing score line because of the scale and the way the graphics are rendered.

If you sat for the paper-based exam, you do have the option to submit a Retabulation Request Form. The Exam Score Retabulation policy provides complete information about the retabulation process. We strongly encourage you to re-register while awaiting the result of your retabulation to ensure you do not miss any deadlines.

The MPS is based on “a modified Angoff method” that incorporates a panel of experts deciding what is the minimum score achievable by a candidate of just-good-enough knowledge and competence.

My interpretation of that is that the MPS is therefore supposed to be independent of candidates’ ‘performance curve’. But this is all just speculation and guesswork, CFA Institute I imagine would not be commenting on this.

The main lesson I would be taking from the Feb-2021 exam results is that 70+% is no longer a guaranteed pass.

We can only guess, but one possibility is that the Feb exam was relatively easier compared to past exams, therefore more candidates scored highly.