Is the CFA Investment Foundations Certificate impressive?

I'm not sure this is an impressive honor/award or EC to have as first time incoming freshman business school applicant.

Why? It's because being a CFA Certified Financial Advisor is a profession like being a Management Consultant or a Stock Broker. If someone earned their Series 7 General Securities Representative Exam or acquired their real estate license prior to starting their undergraduate journey, it would be a bit odd for many admissions officers to read, unless of course these were older students who took 5 or 10 years off to become stock brokers and realtors prior to going back to school to get their degrees.

Thinking through this with a lens of an admissions officer at UPenn or Cornell or MIT, I think I would be more impressed if the applicant did more conventional things as an EC or to show evidence of their intellectual vitality:

-Show leadership in an High School Investment Club

-Raised money to help the community

-Created a start up with their friends to earn extra money like fixing laptops or smart phones

-Created an online community for teens to learn about business jargon, current business events, or entrepreneurship

-Attended various summer programs for teens on business topics.

-Taking AP Micro Economics, AP Macro Economics, AP Statistics, AP Seminar or AP Research about a business topic of interest, perhaps ending with earning the AP Capstone project diploma. Getting As and 5s on the AP exams for these.

-Take an online college course in something they were genuinely interested in.

To be honest, I'm not sure this is an impressive thing to be doing even if you are applying for an MBA program. I think all business schools and colleges want to ease their students into learning about the basic concepts first before they chose a major like Marketing or Accounting or Finance and then after they graduate they can decide if they want to apply to be traders, consultants, brokers, or front, middle or back office people.

Good luck to you kid if you are the mom, or to yourself if you just have an odd handle.