CFP Exam Looms as Courses Near Completion

I will be taking the CFP Exam in November, and I'm starting to dread the preparations I'll need to make between now and then.

In order to sit for the 2 day long CFP exam, you first have to complete 7 required courses. Some universities offer a 2 year program, but I enrolled for an accelerated track so I could have all the courses done in one year. It's been quite a time commitment, but the months have flown by. I can't believe it's already been nearly 10 months since I began my CFP program.

Last fall I enrolled in my first two classes - Fundamentals of Financial Planning and Investments. In the first quarter of this year I completed two more - Principles of Risk and Insurance and Retirement Planning and Employee Benefits. In the first part of the summer I completed Tax Planning.

Now I've begun my last two 11 week courses - Estate Planning and Financial Planning Strategies & Case Study, in which I assume we'll learn to put together all that we've allegedly learned.

The time commitment has been a drag (and I still can't figure out when/how to eat dinner when I have class from 6pm to 9pm after work), but the classes haven't been that difficult. I quit doing all of the required readings during my first quarter and barely commit any time to studying outside the 6 hours a week of class time.

I have managed to make an A or B in each course so far, and I'm sure these last two will be no exception. But that doesn't mean I'm prepared for the CFP exam.

As we near the end of our courses, the professors and other students have begun spreading horror stories and warnings and tips and rumors about how hard the exam is, how low the pass rate, how many hours must be committed to exam prep outside of course study (300 is the going recommendation), and so on.

"Have NO LIFE outside the CFP!" seems to be the mantra. Forget your social life, forget your family, put everything on hold, you will have no life for the next four months. One professor kindly assured us that with the proper preparation we could all pass it the first time just like he did - then he told us that he completed over 4,000 practice problems in preparation.

I am wearily concerned in the face of all this. I am certainly not ready yet for the exam, and I hadn't really planned to start the intense study part until the month or so before the exam. Now I'm thinking I might need to reconsider my strategy...