ACE Seminar Attending

[Dont Bother]

Overall I was disappointed in the seminar, particularly with the presentation and content of the practice problems composed by the instructors: The facts from the seminar are:

- The seminar did cover the major sections of the exam
- The seminar provided practice / example problems, which was very good. However, there were numerous errors in the problems. I would estimate at least 50% of the problems had multiple errors. When in front of a group of this aptitude, these mistakes will be caught.

After a little research, I believe that the instructors work full time, with one getting their FSA in 2006 and the other getting their ASA in 2006. Interesting.

My overall point is that the seminar costs $950 / person. Multiply that by the number of attendeed (72) and you get almost $70,000 dollars. For each participant, a round trip airline ticket, four nights in a hotel, and food can lead to approximately $2000 that the individual or the employer on behalf of the individual. Can you honestly tell your employer that the seminar was worth $2,000?

Let's say you have leaks in your roof. If you paid someone a signifcant amount of money to fix that roof, and a couple of days later you had more leaks, how would you feel?

My final thought is that you get what you pay for. When you pay such a large price for something, you expect a polished product (then again, when you work full time that is an unrealistic expectation). I will not make any comment of the motivation of the instructors (that is up to you).

Just make sure to do your research before choosing to attend a particular seminar (Heck, if you already have ASA or get your FSA at the end of the year give your own).

I will let the reader of this thread draw the conclusion regarding the cost-benefit of the seminar.

[wat?]

Overall I was disappointed in the seminar, particularly with the presentation and content of the practice problems composed by the instructors: The facts from the seminar are:

- The seminar did cover the major sections of the exam
- The seminar provided practice / example problems, which was very good. However, there were numerous errors in the problems. I would estimate at least 50% of the problems had multiple errors. When in front of a group of this aptitude, these mistakes will be caught.

After a little research, I believe that the instructors work full time, with one getting their FSA in 2006 and the other getting their ASA in 2006. Interesting.

My overall point is that the seminar costs $950 / person. Multiply that by the number of attendeed (72) and you get almost $70,000 dollars. For each participant, a round trip airline ticket, four nights in a hotel, and food can lead to approximately $2000 that the individual or the employer on behalf of the individual. Can you honestly tell your employer that the seminar was worth $2,000?

Let's say you have leaks in your roof. If you paid someone a signifcant amount of money to fix that roof, and a couple of days later you had more leaks, how would you feel?

My final thought is that you get what you pay for. When you pay such a large price for something, you expect a polished product (then again, when you work full time that is an unrealistic expectation). I will not make any comment of the motivation of the instructors (that is up to you).

Just make sure to do your research before choosing to attend a particular seminar (Heck, if you already have ASA or get your FSA at the end of the year give your own).

I will let the reader of this thread draw the conclusion regarding the cost-benefit of the seminar.


What was the alternative, though? I thought ACE was the only one with a seminar?

[akorakd]

Now this really gets to me. What does the date they attained ASA / FSA have to do with anything? Age does not equal knowledge. Did the instructors know the material or not? I happen to think that they did. You are free to disagree but please do not mention that they are new fellows, and so......

Secondly, there is a reason this was the only seminar being offered. Nobody else wanted to do what these guys had to do. which is to rush through the material and put something together. I happen to think that this seminar was extremely helpful. Without it, God only knows how I would have understood the GAAP stuff.

I noted that there were quite a lot of people at the seminar who had already passed course 8i and were taking CSP for some reason. Most of these people seemed to want to prove that they knew as much as the instructors and so were asking extraneous questions which distracted from the seminar. I do agree that there were some typos. but I believe this was mostly due to the rush and they should be fixed next time around.

In short, I think these were excellent tutors who rushed to put something together that was extremely helpful to me. I hope to attend their DP seminar too.
Peace!

[RichieGB]

I've mentioned elsewhere that I enjoyed the seminar. I agree with pretty much everything in akorakid's post.

[WOWer]

Disagree with OP. I think they are good.

[KernelSmooth]

I particularly enjoyed eating Denny's everday. Love that Super Bird. All Salute!

[CalmSea]

Now this really gets to me. What does the date they attained ASA / FSA have to do with anything? Age does not equal knowledge. Did the instructors know the material or not? I happen to think that they did. You are free to disagree but please do not mention that they are new fellows, and so......

Secondly, there is a reason this was the only seminar being offered. Nobody else wanted to do what these guys had to do. which is to rush through the material and put something together. I happen to think that this seminar was extremely helpful. Without it, God only knows how I would have understood the GAAP stuff.
Peace!

Good points. Akorakd.

[Dont Bother]

if you thought it was a high quality seminar then good for you. The seminar did have some positives, but can say that you would pay for it using money out of your own pocket? Like I said, having a full time job (other than at your own firm that specializes in seminars) and putting together a quality product is extremely difficult. If I pay a ton of money at a restaurant, I am definitely getting a steak. If you prefer hamburgers then order a hamburger (maybe you've never had a good steak). Just remember that you can get a hamburger at any fast food joint.

By the way, all of the people I talked to had some negative feelings as well (not nearly as strong as mine). It would be interesting to read the feedback from the surveys.

[wat?]

if you thought it was a high quality seminar then good for you. The seminar did have some positives, but can say that you would pay for it using money out of your own pocket? Like I said, having a full time job (other than at your own firm that specializes in seminars) and putting together a quality product is extremely difficult. If I pay a ton of money at a restaurant, I am definitely getting a steak. If you prefer hamburgers then order a hamburger (maybe you've never had a good steak). Just remember that you can get a hamburger at any fast food joint.

By the way, all of the people I talked to had some negative feelings as well (not nearly as strong as mine). It would be interesting to read the feedback from the surveys.

Well, at least you should have your plan for Exam DP (if you're taking it) - don't eat at the restaurant, because it's going to be the first time a seminar is offered then, too.

Also, other negative feelings that were intimated to you might be a psychological thing. If you expressed your dissatisfaction with the seminar as strongly as you did in this thread with me, and I liked the seminar, I would probably just sit there and nod when you ranted about the seminar because really - there's no convincing someone out of their passionate feelings. Especially when it's an opinion about a seminar - it's not worth it to get into an argument.

[akorakd]

I"ll bet my two cents that 'Dont Bother' is one of those who has already passed course 8i and hence does not need to take DP. These were exactly the sort of people who tried to disrupt the seminar with their unnecessary and non-syllabus questions.

Why you even bothered to come to the seminar, I don't know. There's a difference between noting some areas of improvement and completely dissing the effort. If you didn't like the seminar, cool. But there's no need to come on this board and try to bad-mouth the instructors and the entire seminar.

For my money, and the others who posted in support, i'll say good job Jake and Ben. There're definitely areas to improve for next time but you guys put forth a solid effort and some of us really appreciated that. By the way, that handout from the seminar is absolutely amazing! I've ended up using that almost exclusively. I haven't opened up my original ACE manual for a while.

[3rookie]

By the way, all of the people I talked to had some negative feelings as well (not nearly as strong as mine). It would be interesting to read the feedback from the surveys.I would think that even those who posted earlier have some negative feelings as well. A Course 8 level seminar with completely new material is a difficult thing to pull off.

What were your expectations?

1) a Bob Batten seminar on Life Contingencies that would completely enlighten you

2) JAM seminar that was a staple for Course 5 & 6 students

3) Perfect 10 seminar that would consolidate fragmented course 8 material and give mathematical examples/problems not found in the readings

(My apologies for omitting other seminars)

My expectation would be similar to the Perfect 10 seminar - and probably a step below due to the time constraints of putting all of the material together for the first time. Additionally, the seminar's effectiveness would be judged differently by those who have taken course 8I (with seminar vs. without) vs. those who have not taken course 8I.

Regardless of how a seminar rated on my awesome-meter, it always jump-started my studying so that I had gone over all of the material before arriving. You say that at least the seminar covered the major sections of the material and provided much-needed practice problems. I'm not sure I would have expected much more than that from a course 8-level seminar offered the first time after a major syllabus change.

Good luck with the exam

[stillH2O]

The purpose of the posts is to inform other readers about our feedback, so he/she can judge for himself/herself, right? I think Don't Bother can post whatever he wants, and so do the other proponents of ACE.

Well, I have always believed in this saying... "Expectation leads to disappointment". I think it was the cost of the seminar, and hence my high expectation. I was disappointed. I have NOT taken/passed Course 8i before, and this IS my first time taking a 'course 8 type' exam. However I had attended JAM seminars in the past, which are very good, hence that high expectation of ACE seminar is 'formed'. That said, Akorakd is not wrong either. Nobody else wanted to do what these guys had to do, and hence only one seminar is offered, and ACE had to rush through the material and put something together. Some of you probably think that it's better to 'have' something than not ( ie, since this is the only seminar, would still go even if review is bad) and since company is paying, so why not? Others might prefer to use these 4 -5 days to study on their own and not get more confused especially if they have to pay out of their own pocket!?

Perhaps I studied harder before attending this ACE seminar ( since it is FSA exam, unlike Course 5 or 6), and hence I needed the lecturers to clear whatever doubts I have. I did get more confused by some of their examples (with wrong answers). To be fair, other examples (GAAP) were good. I am sure that the typos in formulas, etc it will be fixed next time round, but I honestly do not want to re-take this exam in 2008. Also, if you are intending to memorise all the formulas, make sure that the formulas ( with the brackets) are correct before you memorise them!

Anyway, my 2 cents' worth....

[Continuously Discrete]

Yeah I agree its alot of material to go through in preparation for a seminar. I disagree with others who say "at least they tried". With two months to prepare, there should not have been as many errors as there were.

Everyone should agree that JAM is the standard for actuarial exam seminars. I wanted to point a few things out to the group:

1) JAM held a seminar for the Finance CSP in Arlington Heights the exact weekend as ACE (although it went the normal 5 days)
2) The seminar itself was $100 cheaper (for an extra day)
This is a bargain for a JAM seminar. Not only are you getting a seminar outline that will replace your current studying materials until the exam date, but you are also getting an instructor who will answer those "off the syllabus" questions that annoyed so many of you. We have a seminar outline with cross outs and scribbles on every page, its own incomplete errata and no mentioning of the remaining 30% of the syllabus.
3) JAM probably went over the entire syllabus (not just the material from Course 8)

I just don't understand how one guy by himself can conduct 2 seminars and author a complete seminar outline in the same time.

[Irina]

I agree with most of what CD said. It's no question that the JAM seminars are of higher quality. This is not a surprise given that Mike Carmody has been teaching (and working in the field) for years and devoted a lot of his time to teaching seminars and writing manuals. That said, I went to the ACE seminar with lower expectation, so I was not that disappointed. From my point of view, anything is better than nothing. I'm glad they offered it. I did learn something from it. Was it worth the money? That depends on individuals. For me, I'm willing to pay anything to improve my chance of passing this exam.

[ACEManual]

Hi all,

I wanted to give you ACE’s take on this thread because I think there are some misconceptions stated above that are worth pointing out. With regards to “50% of problems had multiple errors”, I think that might be true for day 2, but in days 1, 3, and 4, the errors were few and far between.

I also would like to point out that a c5 and c6 JAM vs. CSP ACE comparison really isn’t apples to apples, the main two reasons being:
1. IMO, c5 and c6 are cake walks compared to c8, both to study for and to teach
2. Those of you who took those seminars most likely took them after they had been given 4 or 5 times

Regarding the coverage of the syllabus……a key part of the ACE value-added proposition remains the working of practice problems and I believe we covered just about all of the “calculation problem-type” areas of the syllabus, in addition to many other sections.

Thanks to everyone for all of the feedback, it has been very helpful. ACE looks forward using this feedback to take our outstanding CSP products and turn them into a benchmark for the manual making industry in 2008!

By and large, just about everyone was quite satisfied with the seminar. I think we’ve got a couple easy fixes to make for next time around, but with some more time to improve our product rather than create it from scratch, it’s easy to already start getting excited about our next CSP seminar!

I also appreciate all of the positive comments at the seminar and notes that everyone has sent! It has been a lot of hard work to create this product, so it’s nice to hear that you think things have gone so well. It also helps to hear all of the positive feedback in keeping up the momentum for the DP exam!!

Since I’ve got this platform, I’d also like to make a couple of announcements:
o Yes, there will be a DP seminar/manual/etc
o Www.acemanuals.com is up and running, you will be able to purchase our products at the website at discounted prices in the near future, download errata, and get other exam updates
o I’m proud to announce that 5% of DP profits will be going to charity (see website for details in the near future)
o We have purchased some equipment to improve the sound quality of our CDs for future versions

Jacob McCoy

[wat?]

Hi all,

I wanted to give you ACE’s take on this thread because I think there are some misconceptions stated above that are worth pointing out. With regards to “50% of problems had multiple errors”, I think that might be true for day 2, but in days 1, 3, and 4, the errors were few and far between.

I also would like to point out that a c5 and c6 JAM vs. CSP ACE comparison really isn’t apples to apples, the main two reasons being:
1. IMO, c5 and c6 are cake walks compared to c8, both to study for and to teach
2. Those of you who took those seminars most likely took them after they had been given 4 or 5 times

Regarding the coverage of the syllabus……a key part of the ACE value-added proposition remains the working of practice problems and I believe we covered just about all of the “calculation problem-type” areas of the syllabus, in addition to many other sections.

Thanks to everyone for all of the feedback, it has been very helpful. ACE looks forward using this feedback to take our outstanding CSP products and turn them into a benchmark for the manual making industry in 2008!

By and large, just about everyone was quite satisfied with the seminar. I think we’ve got a couple easy fixes to make for next time around, but with some more time to improve our product rather than create it from scratch, it’s easy to already start getting excited about our next CSP seminar!

I also appreciate all of the positive comments at the seminar and notes that everyone has sent! It has been a lot of hard work to create this product, so it’s nice to hear that you think things have gone so well. It also helps to hear all of the positive feedback in keeping up the momentum for the DP exam!!

Since I’ve got this platform, I’d also like to make a couple of announcements:
o Yes, there will be a DP seminar/manual/etc
o Www.acemanuals.com is up and running, you will be able to purchase our products at the website at discounted prices in the near future, download errata, and get other exam updates
o I’m proud to announce that 5% of DP profits will be going to charity (see website for details in the near future)
o We have purchased some equipment to improve the sound quality of our CDs for future versions

Jacob McCoy

Thanks for the response, Jacob. :tup:

I have one question, and unfortunately, it's not related to the CSP exam or the ACE seminar at all.

You mentioned you'll be doing a manual for DP. At this point, do you have any inside information on what may be included on the Exam DP-ILA syllabus? Or are you waiting patiently like the rest of us?