Wall Street Prep vs. Corporate Finance Institute (CFI)
Wall Street Prep (WSP) pioneered the Financial and Valuation Modeling Self-Study Program in 2003 for students and professionals pursuing careers in finance.
WSP’s program is now used widely at the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms, asset managers, 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 differences and similarities between the programs and explain why Wall Street Prep remains the best choice.
Wall Street Prep vs. CFI: Full Comparison of Course Offerings
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| Product | Premium Package | FMVA |
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| Used by investment banks to formally train analysts and associates? |
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| Other Benefits |
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| Years in Business |
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| Certificate |
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| Qualifies for CPE Credit |
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Wall Street Prep vs. CFI: Course Quality Comparison
You’ll be learning directly from Matan Feldman, one of Wall Street’s most sought-after trainers of new analysts and associates.
Given the considerations stated above, Wall Street Prep’s program provides the highest quality training out there.
Wall Street Prep invests substantial resources, time, and energy to ensure that materials reflect current best practices and are taught in a way that is intuitive.
The training structure abides by a clear, step-by-step approach where trainees build models essentially from scratch, starting from a blank Excel spreadsheet and working sequentially through a model.
Everything You Need To Master Financial Modeling
Enroll in The Premium Package: Learn Financial Statement Modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO and Comps. The same training program used at top investment banks.
Enroll TodayWSP vs. CFI: Illustrative 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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Which Program 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.
In closing, we’ve listed out a partial list of Wall Street Prep (WSP) clients compared to that of Corporate Finance Institute (CFI).
Ultimately, the decision is yours: Wall Street Prep (WSP), the industry-recognized, global training provider with 200+ corporate clients, 125+ university clients, and 300k+ paying customers — or Corporate Finance Institute (CFI).
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So Informative!