FMVA Certification Review: Is It Worth It? (+ Discount Code)

Manuel Bleve
6 min readJun 19, 2020

--

Is the FMVA certification worth it? Since I added my FMVA credential on Linkedin, I received a lot of messages with this question. Of course, if you’re about to invest your money and time in this CFI program, you want to know if it’s worth the effort. Don’t worry! After reading this FMVA review, you will find out if this certification program is the right one for you.

Article Summary:

  • FMVA Certification Overview: Before we start, we’ll do a brief overview, just in case you don’t know exactly what is the fmva certification, or if you still don’t completely understand what that is about.
  • FMVA Course Review: After figuring out what is the Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst certification, we will review the training program. Is it thorough enough? Are lessons boring to take? How much time do you need to complete the program?
  • FMVA Exams Review: After going deeper about the course, we will review the exams. Are they difficult to pass? How many times can you try? What’s the minimum grade you have to get?
  • Is The FMVA Worth It: After explaining everything about the program, we will answer the one-million-dollar question. Is the FMVA certification worth it?
  • FMVA Discount Code: I know that, for a student, even a small investment can be a big thing. For this reason, I’m happy to share with you my refer-a-friend invite that will let you access a 10% coupon code.

What Is The FMVA Certification?

The Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst certification is a designation released by the Corporate Finance Institute after completing the online training program and passing the final test.

According to the CFI, the institute counts more than 350,600 students all over the world. You can just do a quick search on Linkedin to find out how many certified financial modeling & valuation analysts earned the certification.

The training program is entirely online, and you can get your certification after passing the 12-modules tests. You can take the tests as many times as you want until you pass it.

FMVA Review: The Course

As we mentioned above, the course is 100% online, with more than 100 hours of recorded video lessons you can take whenever and wherever you want.

They aren’t live but, if you are a full-immersion student, you can reach your professors at any time via email, and they usually respond within a business day. In particular, with the full-immersion bundle, you get the premium email support from a qualified financial analyst, for up to 5 course-related questions per week.

As you can see in the pictures below, I sent them an email at 7.45 p.m., and I got a detailed answer in a few hours. I believe this is one of the top reasons to join the program because having a tutor is extremely important if you want to get better at financial modeling and valuation.

FMVA Course Review: Premium Email Support
FMVA Program Review: Premium Email Support

The training program consists of 9 core courses and 3 elective courses that you can choose among 9 alternatives. The core courses cover the standard knowledge of financial modeling, while the elective ones go more in-depth about specific topics such as real estate modeling, Excel VBA, corporate and business strategy, and more.

As we said previously, there are more than 100 hours of video lessons. For this reason, one of the questions I received the most is: Are lessons boring to take?

The answer is: No, absolutely.

They have nothing to do with an average university lecture. You won’t spend 2 hours following a boring lecture since every topic is packed into a ten to twenty minutes video lesson that is interesting, engaging, and real-world inspired. These little nuggets of knowledge make it easy to complete the program since you can take a lesson any time you have as little as twenty minutes free.

Another question I often received is: How much time do you need to complete the program?

According to the CFI, the average completion time is 6 months. However, it takes me just 1 month to complete the program since I took it right after I finished my exam session at the university, so I had much free time. If you want to have a better idea about the time it will take you, just divide the lesson hours (approximately 100) by the time you can dedicate it daily. If you can study for 1 hour/day, you should achieve the FMVA certification in 3 months.

FMVA Review: The Tests

As I wrote above, to achieve your certification, you need to pass a test for each module of the program and a final exam that covers the entire training material with the Amazon case study.

To pass the tests, you must earn a minimum passing grade of 80% in each course assessment. As you can guess, this is one of the most frequently asked questions: Are the tests difficult to pass?

I pass most of the tests on the first attempt, but there are some assessments I passed only after trying two times. The most difficult one is obviously the final test, where you apply everything you learned in the course with the Amazon case study.

Every time you pass a test, you achieve a certificate of course completion. Once you completed every course, you obtain the FMVA diploma.

Certificate of course completion example and FMVA diploma:

FMVA Review: Certificate of course completion example
FMVA Certification Example

Is The FMVA Certification Worth It?

Yes, it is definitely worth it. But don’t get me wrong; becoming a certified FMVA doesn’t mean that you’ll get access to every job you want or that you will automatically get a six-figure salary. No hiring manager will hire you just because you are an FMVA.

What I mean is that it’s not about the certification, it’s about the skills. That’s what it is about, and that’s why the FMVA certification is worth it. It is worth it because it will help you achieve the skills required to be a financial analyst. It is worth it because a company won’t need to spend hours and hours on your training like with most new graduates.

The FMVA Certification does exactly what it promises you: it bridges the gap between what you’ve learned in university and the skills you need to have in the real world.

What’s more, it is an incredible resource that will support you forever. Every time I have doubts about financial modeling, I need just to open my FMVA dashboard and take a look at the right lesson. Furthermore, you will have access to hundreds of Excel and PowerPoint templates that will save you much time.

FMVA Certification Discount Code

As a student, I know that even a small investment can be a big thing. For this reason, I’m happy to share with you a 10% Off Coupon.

All you have to do is sign up for the program using this link and use the following coupon code: CFIPARTNER10.

Conclusion

To conclude, if you are looking for financial modeling training, if you want to achieve the skills you need in the real world and get a job as a financial analyst, the FMVA program is the right choice for you.

If you have some doubts or questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Just write a comment below, or send me a message on Linkedin. I’ll be happy to help you.

See you in the next article!

Manuel

This post may contain affiliate links that allow you to access a 10% discount for the FMVA certification program while I may earn a small commission if you buy something using them. Thanks!

--

--