Why Would a CFP Review Provider Not Offer Free Repeats?

I’m often disappointed but seldom surprised by the policies of some CFP exam review providers. Here’s the issue, when considering which review provider to trust enrolling with, wouldn’t it make sense to choose a review provider that will stick with you if you’re not successful on the exam? Wouldn’t it make sense for a review provider to be confident in their instructors, materials, methodology and offer a guarantee that you’ll pass the exam, otherwise you can take the review again for free? Of course it makes sense! Any quality review provider with good pass rates would ALWAYS offer their students free repeats. The only reason a review provider would not offer free repeats is if too many of their students aren’t passing the exam and the percentage of students retaking their reviews is too high and the review provider doesn’t have enough first time “paying” students relative to “free” retake students. Some review providers will try to get around the issue by offering a 50% discount if you want to take the review again. Any review provider that believes in themselves and their students will offer 100% free repeats. If a CFP review provider doesn’t offer free repeats, they don’t trust themselves and they don’t trust their students.

Let's consider why a review provider would NOT offer free repeats. Let's take the Kaplan CFP review for example. They used to have a free repeat policy, but they recently changed the policy to charge repeat students 50% of the review fee. Why do you think they changed the policy? Well, we already know that the national pass rate on the CFP exam is 50-55%, so let's say they had a review class of 20 students, but 50% of those students are retaking the review because they were unsuccessful on the exam. So only 10 students are actually paying for the class. The economics of offering a review would make the class unprofitable because of too many “retake” students. So, instead of changing their materials or review methodology to improve their pass rates, they just change their policy to charge students for retaking the review. Like I said, I’m often disappointed but seldom surprised by some CFP exam review providers.

At The Dalton Review^® for the CFP exam, we have always offered free repeats and we’re able to do it because our pass rates are consistently 70-80% and it’s the right thing to do for our students. As a matter of fact, we have two guarantees:

1. We Guarantee Your Success – otherwise take the review again for free.

2. Guarantee Your Own Success – take our review twice before you even take the exam.

The Dalton Review^® course costs $1,395, including all materials and students are able to take the review multiple times, at no additional cost. We trust our instructors, materials and methodology, but most of all, we trust our students to follow our study plan and ultimately be successful on the CFP exam.