BB SIE, 63, & 79, what order do you take? Which is easiest? Hardest?

Hi was wondering if there are any recent 2nd/3rd year analysts or associates at BB's who had to take the SIE, 63, and 79....

What order did you take the exams in? / which should you study for 1st, 2nd, 3rd?

How would you rank them from hardest to easiest?

 
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Feel bad for whatever firm you work at you literally didn't answer any of the questions OP asked lmao.

 

Don't you have to take the SIE before taking the 79? Unsure if SIE has to come before 63 though

63 -> SIE -> 79 with 79 being hardest

The 63 is by far the easiest as far as content goes, was mostly common sense IMO, took a week to prepare for

SIE is loaded with a super wide range of finance topics, the vast majority being irrelevant to IB, but it's mostly surface level. Took about 2 months to prep for given I took it during my 2nd semester senior year, would normally have taken like 2-3 weeks to feel super confident

The 79 has a lot of regulatory info and procedures that can get pretty convoluted and I think is by far the hardest. There are a lot of easy valuation topics on it too, but this was the one I was least confident going into. Entire 2-3 weeks of training was dedicated to just this one exam and they had us read a textbook and take a bunch of practice tests before training started

My bank had us take SIE first, then 79, and then 63

 
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I'm fairly certain that you must take the SIE prior to taking the 63 and 79, as the 63 and 79 are considered top-off examinations. Regardless, of the three, the 79 is the most "difficult" (based on volume and content) followed by the SIE. The "difficult" portions of the SIE relate to random one-off topics such as annual limitations on political contributions. The 63 has material that is unfamiliar to many candidates, but the exam is quite easy to pass, as 85% of the questions source from three of the five chapters.

The order in which you should take the 63 or 79 (assuming you take the SIE first) is dependent on your other scheduling windows. Are you testing at a Prometric site? There is quite a bit of current backlog that might dictate available testing dates. For example, if the next available test date is 2-3 weeks from the day you are checking the Prometric site, you may opt to take the 63, as the material can be covered thoroughly in that time frame. Regardless, none of the material is difficult assuming you prepared for the technical components of recruiting, survived your summer stint, and attended your accounting and finance courses in college.

 
 

I did 63, SIE, 79. The 63 is easy and it helped me get used to the testing site etc. ETA: I did my testing in the middle of the SIE transition, so I would advise the 79 before the 63 since there's more overlap between the 79 and SIE than SIE and 63.

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