More than 900 candidates wrote the Financial Planning Standards Council (FPSC) Level 1 Certification in Financial Planning and Certified Financial Planner (CFP) exams in November. FPSC released the results of these exams on March 11.

In order to sit the four-hour, multiple-choice FPSC Level 1 examination, which is the first exam on the path to earn the CFP designation, candidates must have successfully completed a core curriculum program that has been approved by the FPSC. In total 535 candidates wrote this exam, and the overall pass rate was 74%. "Of the candidates who wrote the exam, 454 were first-time writers (77% pass rate), while 81 were re-attempting the exam (57% pass rate)," says the FPSC.

The path to certification

As for the six hour CFP exam, which is the final test on the path to CFP certification, it was written by 424 candidates who first qualified by passing the FPSC Level 1 certification and by successfully completing an FPSC-approved capstone course. The FPSC says the overall pass rate for this exam was 62%. "Of the candidates who wrote the exam, 326 were first-time writers (73% pass rate), while 98 were re-attempting the exam (25% pass rate)," notes the FPSC.