Wall Street Prep vs. CFI
Wall Street Prep pioneered the Financial Modeling Self-Study Program in 2003 for students and professionals pursuing careers in finance. The program is now used widely at the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms and MBA programs.
Since 2003 several other companies have emerged to offer similar programs, including the Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) in 2015.
While WSP and CFI offer multiple products, both have a version of a “complete” flagship product which includes what typically represents the “core” investment banking financial modeling skill set.
In this article, I will try to lay out some of the differences and similarities between the programs and explain why Wall Street Prep remains the best choice.
Wall Street Prep vs. Corporate Finance Institute
Full Comparison of Course Offerings
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Product | Premium Package | FMVA |
Price | $499 for lifetime access (See deals) | $497 for 1 year |
What you get | Videos + PDF + Excel Templates | Videos + PDF + Excel Templates |
Access | Lifetime | 1 Year |
Primary Content Author | Matan Feldman:
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Tim Vipond:
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Used by investment banks to formally train analysts and associates? | Yes | No |
Program Structure |
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Can You Download Lessons? | Yes | No |
Other Benefits |
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6-Months Access to Pitchbook |
Support | E-mail & Phone | Email & Phone |
Years in Business | Since 2003 | Since 2015 |
Certification Available? | Yes | Yes |
Qualifes for CPE Credit? | Yes | Yes |
You’ll be learning directly from Matan Feldman, one of Wall Street’s most sought-after trainers of new analysts and associates.
Course Quality
Given the considerations stated above, Wall Street Prep’s program provides the highest quality training out there. Wall Street Prep invests heavily in ensuring that materials reflect current best practices and are taught in a way that is intuitive. The training follows a very clear, step-by-step approach where trainees build models essentially from scratch, starting from a blank excel spreadsheet and working sequentially through a model.
Course Samples
When considering which financial modeling program to enroll in, factors such as price, support, content format and access to a macro toolkit are all important. But perhaps the most critical factor of all is the quality of the content – a financial modeling program is useless if it does not teach the material effectively.
There’s no better way to determine which approach works best for you than to sample the programs.
Below we’ve provided some sample videos that will allow you to compare WSP’s vs CFI’s teaching approach, the level of complexity of the model (is this a real-life model?) and how concepts are covered. (CFI does not offer samples without email registration).
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CFI does not offer samples without email registration. |
Which program(s) do investment banks use to train their analysts and associates?
Investment banks, private equity firms, and top business school programs hire Wall Street Prep to conduct analyst and associate training in-house. This enables our instructors (all former investment bankers who are also involved in the development and refinement of the self-study program) to receive continuous feedback about materials and integrate the latest best practices into the training material. Below we lay out how WSP and CFI compare in this area:
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Partial list of live classroom training:
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Firms do not hire Corporate Finance Institute for live classroom training to our knowledge. |
So Informative!