I am also curious about the Certified Consultant status re: Specializations.

I re-certified this weekend and found the new version of the MCE slightly easier than the previous year. The questions were geared more towards marketers than non-marketing admins, as Carley noted above. I've been a Marketo admin since December 2015 for two different organizations and have learned most of my Marketo knowledge on the fly.

The prep course content was adequate but did feel very high-level. I prefer to review and study using test questions and online flash cards versus a three-hour online training.