online classes Forum

[northwood]

hello:
I am wondering about whcih online learning company should I use to prepare for the October test. I am considering testmasters, princeton review, and alpha score. I have heard a lot of good information about princetion review's class ( i would take the live online one) and the only thing ive head about alpha score is that they are substancially cheaper ( more than 600 less.) I want to get the most value for my money as possible. Right now I am scoring in the low to mid 150's, and would like to see a score increase into the low to mid 160's. As an aside, would starting to study right now for an hour or 2 a night, allow me to have some sort of social life during the summer, or should i realize and accept the fact now that its a better option to be a bore and study all the time?

Also, for those who work for princeton review or any other company- do your classes fillup and if so, when, and are their any rebate codes available if i purchase online ? I have a wedding that I am in during the beginning of july so I will have to miss some studying time- how does taht work with online classes wise?

WOow... i just wrote a novel- sorry about that.. any info greatly helps!!

[WWAD]

I did blueprint, liked it a lot, I was starting from scratch. I am now doing the "read the bibles, take every test" style, but i would have never gotten this far without starting with the BP thing. Any program is only going to get you the basics though, make sure you have the time to put in the extra work you will need.

[Atlas LSAT Teacher]

Since you asked, we also do live online classes (not recorded like a movie, but actually interactive) with two teachers and a max capacity of 25 students, so folks get a lot of attention (and we do break-out rooms for leveling lessons if the class gets too disparate in ability). You can attend a trial class to see if our classes work for you. http://www.atlaslsat.com/online-classes.cfm

I can't speak to Alpha, but see if they'll let you sit in on a class so you can make sure the teachers can really teach. TomWatts is a Princeton Review teacher and he likes what they do -- search out his name and pm him.

As for rebates for us, there's a TLS discount: TLS2010 which knocks 10% off the course cost. If you miss a class, no worries, as we always record your session for you, and there's an archive of other classes you can watch as well (or you can jump into a different course to make up that session if the schedules allow it).

As for how much time, 15 hours a week sounds good for the first month or so, but every week or so you'll also need to do full preptests which take about 3.5 hours. As WWAD said, you'll have to do a lot on your own. In the month after the course (and we try to end our courses early so you still have time to do a lot more practice of what you learn in the later sessions), you'll want to pour on the heat.

Good luck!

[bp colin]

hello:
I am wondering about whcih online learning company should I use to prepare for the October test. I am considering testmasters, princeton review, and alpha score. I have heard a lot of good information about princetion review's class ( i would take the live online one) and some good/ bad from alpha score. They claim to teach using the same materials as the rest, but are substancially cheaper ( more than 600 less.) This worries me, as I want to get the most value for my money as possible. Right now I am scoring in the low to mid 150's, and would like to see a score increase into the low to mid 160's. As an aside, would starting to study right now for an hour or 2 a night, allow me to have some sort of social life during the summer, or should i realize and accept the fact now that its a better option to be a bore and study all the time?

Also, for those who work for princeton review or any other company- do your classes fillup and if so, when, and are their any rebate codes available if i purchase online ? I have a wedding that I am in during the beginning of july so I will have to miss some studying time- how does taht work with online classes wise?

WOow... i just wrote a novel- sorry about that.. any info greatly helps!!

I did blueprint, liked it a lot, I was starting from scratch. I am now doing the "read the bibles, take every test" style, but i would have never gotten this far without starting with the BP thing. Any program is only going to get you the basics though, make sure you have the time to put in the extra work you will need.

If you've got any questions about Blueprint, feel free to PM me.

[tomwatts]

Also, for those who work for princeton review or any other company- do your classes fillup and if so, when, and are their any rebate codes available if i purchase online ? I have a wedding that I am in during the beginning of july so I will have to miss some studying time- how does taht work with online classes wise?

I don't believe we have a maximum class size (we've never needed to; largest I've taught has been in the neighborhood of 25 students). I haven't the foggiest clue what the normal timing of our discounts is, but if I had to guess, I'd guess that we'll be having one starting in June (and it would be good for any class you sign up for, provided you sign up during a given window).

Missing classes is not too bad; we have recorded lessons that you can use to make up classes. It may also be possible to sit in on another section (because we have classes running all the time) to make up the same material. You can also get PDFs of the lectures that we taught after the fact, because the screens can be saved as PDFs.

A few additional pieces of advice/caution: I've never heard of Alpha Score, so I have no idea what their story is, but the Testmasters that offers classes online is, as far as I can tell, not the real Testmasters. It's the Texas Testmasters, which is by all accounts pretty awful (though I can't say that I know anything specific about them). So be careful what you sign up for.

While we're at it: It probably would be best just to study all the time over the summer. If you study ahead of time, you'll have all sorts of strange bad habits that I (or whoever your teacher is) will have to break. If you come in as a blank slate, at least there's a chance that you can start doing everything more or less right from the beginning. This test is a huge part of where you get in, and it's worth enough to consume most of your life for a few months. The score improvement you're looking for is realistic, so that's good.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know about Princeton Review or online classes in general.

[Addicted to LSAT]

Northwood,

I teach for Alpha-Score so feel free to PM me with any questions you might have. With respect to the cost/value proposition, we offer a complete course that covers every aspect of the LSAT in detail including videos lessons and interactive tutorials. We are a bit cheaper than the rest mostly because we spend less on advertising. Our students have been very impressed with the course and teaching quality and have seen significant score increases.

You can try some lessons out for free at http://www.alphascore.com/ and there's a TLS code that gets you 10% off "TLS15".

If you have more questions or would like to try our course out before you buy, please feel free to PM me.

As a side note, you mentioned studying an hour or two a night. This is good but I'd recommend putting aside at least one day a week where you are putting in a solid 4 hours at a time and doing practice LSATs. One reason for this is to build up your test stamina and to get used to writing an exam of this length. Get started with this and have your social life too, then see how your practice scores look and adjust your study times accordingly. Hope this helps.