I am in the Albany summer program now. We take the finals in about 2 weeks. It is not necessarily a scam, some people do make it, but it is MUCH harder than you would think. It is not even the concepts that make it hard, but rather you have to teach it to yourself because the classes are online and the professors are not readily available. Some of the professors do not even email you back if you ask a question. I have to say that one of my professors is great, and the other is pretty hands off. I guess it really depends on how much effort the professor wants to dedicate to the class….often times it seems like it is not very much effort at all, but what can you do. You paid the money, you have to make the best out of it.I think the hardest part is finding the time to take these classes if you work full time. It is really rough to manage because you need to dedicate A LOT of time to them. In our program they told us that it would be possible to take the classes while working full time and then during orientation they told us that it would be almost impossible to pass working full time and balancing the classes. They were not joking, I switched my hours from 40 plus a week to about 25 to 30 a week to be able to handle the program. Everyday there are numerous problems and hypos due in the middle of the day, which is really not fair to people with jobs. A few times a week you are also required to be at chats which serve as lectures…they are usually more counter productive than anything else. Again, these are normally in the middle of the day which makes it hard for working people to attend them. Plus, there is a crazy amount of reading and interpreting to do each day. They really just took a normal 4 month class and turned it into a two month online class.The two classes that you take are taught (or you teach yourself rather) over 8 weeks. The classes are Negotiable Instruments and Criminal Procedure, both 2nd year law classes. Which surprisingly were not that hard to grasp. However, it would have been nice to have the first year courses as foundation because often times you will be reading the textbook and it will say “Refer back to the rules learned in your first year torts class”…. Fabulous if I took a first year torts class!!!! The GPA that you need to get in is determined by the finals. Nothing else that you do for the class matters at all. The tests are then graded by people who grade the bar exam… and let me tell you they are ROUGH graders. For instance on one of the quizzes, I wrote, “there was no improper search” they took points off because they wanted it to say “there was no search”. You have to be very careful with how you phrase your answers. No one has gotten above a 2.8. Only about 5 or 6 of us would have passed if the quizzes were the real deal. One of the professors told me to forget about the A’s I am used to getting because they do not give them out in this class. It was a hard concept to grasp, but I realized as long as I pass I don’t care. Luckily I am one of the people who grasp the concepts and can apply them. I just need to stick with it a little longer and hopefully my luck stays with me through the final.In essence, these classes are trying to weed people out, and apparently they succeed. We started with about 50 people, and we are down to a little under 30. People get frustrated, get buried in the readings, overwhelmed with the amount of problems, tired of spending every waking minute doing law work, and they give up. It is crazy, but in a lot of ways I really think it does emulate what first year will be like….the frustration, the break downs, the lack of sleep, and the lack of any semblance of a social life. However, in my opinion it only helps prepare you for what it really will be like.
No problem, glad I could help.If you have any other questions, just let me know, if you dont want to post them here you can send me a private message.I would suggest that you put down a deposit at the school that you are in at. I was accepted into a school that I liked that was far away, then I was given a shot at the Albany program which would allow me to be closer to my home. I did put a deposit down at the school that I got in, just incase I dont make it through the program. It is good to have a back up plan.Good luck!
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