Halfway done with BarBri: it's a waste of money

[jack24]

I know most people won't feel this way, but I think BarBri is a major waste of money.  I think the market value for the program is more like 500 bucks (not 3000), but most students feel like they have no other choice.  There are alternatives out there, but it's a risky gamble to pay someone else.

I think BarBri offers some great things (good books, a great schedule at a good pace, and some valuable tips and feedback), but they just waste so much of your time.
I feel like many people justify it by saying, "if this wasn't the best way to do it then BarBri wouldn't do it this way."
I suppose some people make that same argument about the socratic method.

If I could do it over again, I would buy the barbri books off craigslist and just study myself.  Then I would have spent the $3000 on a vacation after I passed the bar.

[unknownOne]

I didn't purchase the Barbri materials at all for the multi-state section and did fine.  (I did make use of a state outline for the essay section).

I simply used the excellent and reader-friendly capsule summaries in the front of the Emanuels books which I had already purchased for classes. I would occasionally flip to the main outline where more detail or explanation was needed.  I didn't spend dozens of hours making flash cards, either. (Why make flash cards when you can simply write down a question on paper and then put the page number next to it where the answer is?)

Then I used the Question and Answer series books to do practice questions.  This exposed areas where I needed more work, and if necessary I would go to the main outline of Emanuels for more thorough treatment of a particular area.

Then I did practice exam questions under time constraints to make sure I was getting a high enough percentage of questions correct.