North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results Forum

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crytown

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by crytown » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:41 am

dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
What did you use to prep for the MBE? How did you feel about the exam prep before taking the test? Do you believe it adequately prepared your for the MBE?

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cricketlove00

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by cricketlove00 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:57 am

crytown wrote:
dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
What did you use to prep for the MBE? How did you feel about the exam prep before taking the test? Do you believe it adequately prepared your for the MBE?
You'll get it in Feb! Sorry for the results.

dreamofNYC

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by dreamofNYC » Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:05 am

crytown wrote:
dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
What did you use to prep for the MBE? How did you feel about the exam prep before taking the test? Do you believe it adequately prepared your for the MBE?
Themis is an awesome program, but I did not follow their studying schedule. I only studied seriously for about four weeks and almost did not practice any essays... next time I will do everything they say.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by dreamofNYC » Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:05 am

cricketlove00 wrote:
crytown wrote:
dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
What did you use to prep for the MBE? How did you feel about the exam prep before taking the test? Do you believe it adequately prepared your for the MBE?
You'll get it in Feb! Sorry for the results.
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement! :)

DurhamNC2017

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by DurhamNC2017 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:06 am

dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
I'm really sorry to hear that; I know the feeling exactlly. I failed in July of last year (by one point) and then passed in Feb. I'm working at a firm I really like and doing well so failing is not a career death sentence. I'm happy to share some of the things I did the second time if that would be helpful.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by ConfusedL1 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:18 am

DurhamNC2017 wrote:
dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
I'm really sorry to hear that; I know the feeling exactlly. I failed in July of last year (by one point) and then passed in Feb. I'm working at a firm I really like and doing well so failing is not a career death sentence. I'm happy to share some of the things I did the second time if that would be helpful.
Please share!

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by DurhamNC2017 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:54 am

ConfusedL1 wrote:
DurhamNC2017 wrote:
dreamofNYC wrote:I failed. I called Themis and they are offering a free repeat. They have been extremely helpful. I do hope to pass the second time around.
I'm really sorry to hear that; I know the feeling exactlly. I failed in July of last year (by one point) and then passed in Feb. I'm working at a firm I really like and doing well so failing is not a career death sentence. I'm happy to share some of the things I did the second time if that would be helpful.
Please share!
I posted a version of this previously in another thread, I hope this is helpful:

I used Kaplan the first time, did not like Kaplan, and did not pass (missed by 1 point). I used Themis the second time, really liked it, and passed; I completed about 72% of the Themis course. I went to a pretty good law school, graduated top 30% of my class, went to school at night, and had a pretty demanding job in the day.

Preparing for the first exam (July exam), I had a lot of other things going on (e.g. moving, looking for jobs, family stuff) and I just never really got to trust the way Kaplan was doing things and frankly going and sitting in a class was not what I needed. I prepared for about 2 months, generally followed the course, but did not do all the MBE questions. To the extent that I did not understand an issue, large or small, I made a note card. I probably did about 70 essays and maybe 600-700 MBE questions. I averaged a 6/10 on my essays and got a 135 on the MBE in terms of my actual bar score.

The second time (Feb. exam), I actually had a lot more going on (e.g. my wife and I had a child around Jan.1, we had a lot of family stuff to take care of including a death in the family, and I had a job that depended on me passing). I was only able to spend about 6 weeks fully engaged in studying. I did about 85-90 essays and about (I think) 950 multiple choice. I used my old note cards and made new ones too. For the last week or so, I focused a lot on memorization. Just reviewing outlines and drilling myself on notecards. I really wanted to be able to tick through rules on my essays and get as many "free points" on the MBE, which I thought of as particular rules or issues that I just knew cold. For the 6 weeks or so I studied, I only worked a little bit (a few hours a week at most), tried to put in at least 8 hours a day actually studying, and I tried to work out at the end of every day. I really benefited from having a schedule like this; for me working out is very relaxing so I really looked forward to it at the end of each day. Also, and I think this is key, I probably spent more time on going over my answers, right or wrong, compared to anything else. This really helped me.

Despite all of the stuff I had going on in my personal life and taking a little less time than recommended to study, I passed. The exam I took had a very low pass rate (in the 30% range), and I saw the rates before I got my results so I was not feeling very confident.

My overall recommendations to those taking it again:

- Pick a daily schedule and try to stick to it but plan to do something you like at the end of each day. I tried to make the last thing I did every day be an MBE problem set and then the first thing I'd do in the morning would be to review the answers, 1 by 1, for an hour or so.
- Spend a lot of time reviewing right and wrong answers
- Focus on putting your essays in a good, lawyerly format (e.g. IRAC)
- If you get an essay topic on the exam you don't know, skip it till the end, and then try to, to the extent you can, tick through as many rules or portions of rules as you can.
- If you enjoyed a particular topic in law school, for me Con. Law and Crim Pro., max out on studying those, especially if they are MBE and state topics that are the same or nearly the same. This way, studying will not seem so bad and hopefully you can really max out your points on those topics.
- Generally try to treat the studying as a job especially if you are not working. e.g. get up early, work until lunch, work after lunch for several more hours, quit around 7 and then do something other than study. If you are working, dedicate the hours between 6-10pm after work to studying and study all day one weekend day, and start a bit earlier than 2 months away if you can. Save stuff that you like for when you think you'll be tired.
- Know that you are going to get frustrated and feel like you'll fail. Just move forward from it. Just keep going on.
- Save some time at the end to do straight memorization.
- Consider Themis- I really recommend Themis, I liked the way the lectures were short and followed by some multiple choice questions. E.g. each topic is broken into chapters of about 20 minutes or less each and after each chapter you have 5 mc questions.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by JMD.USMC » Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:39 pm

Failed in Charlotte.
Does anyone know what the overall pass rate was?

I have been out of law school for about 5 years now. I was working in financial services as a consultant and hated it so I decided to take the bar to try and practice. I tried to focus on all the NC specific things I didn't learn since I went to school out of state. It seemed like a lot of the stuff from law school was coming back pretty easily, but I guess it wasn't enough.

I used Ameribar as a prep course, not sure if I should stick with them for my retest or if there is a better option for folks who have failed the exam or been away from school for a while.

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hipcatdaddio

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by hipcatdaddio » Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:30 pm

Passed in Raleigh.

Congrats to others who passed, sincere condolences to those who didn't. That was a tough test. I was pretty confident I had failed. That con law essay, come on?!?!

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cricketlove00

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by cricketlove00 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:54 pm

hipcatdaddio wrote:Passed in Raleigh.

Congrats to others who passed, sincere condolences to those who didn't. That was a tough test. I was pretty confident I had failed. That con law essay, come on?!?!
Congrats!

I thought all the essays were pretty rough or I was just not prepared as I would've liked to be for them. The con law one was really poorly written.

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hipcatdaddio

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by hipcatdaddio » Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:59 pm

cricketlove00 wrote:
hipcatdaddio wrote:Passed in Raleigh.

Congrats to others who passed, sincere condolences to those who didn't. That was a tough test. I was pretty confident I had failed. That con law essay, come on?!?!
Congrats!

I thought all the essays were pretty rough or I was just not prepared as I would've liked to be for them. The con law one was really poorly written.
I was good with the Secured and the Property essay, but other than that I was not confident at all in my answers.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by phantom1412 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:01 pm

hipcatdaddio wrote:Passed in Raleigh.

Congrats to others who passed, sincere condolences to those who didn't. That was a tough test. I was pretty confident I had failed. That con law essay, come on?!?!
It took me a while to figure out whether that was a civ pro essay or a con law essay. I hate how they couched so many of those questions in civ pro.

Seems like letters are rolling into my state today (MD). Still waiting for the mailman

dreamofNYC

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by dreamofNYC » Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:36 pm

JMD.USMC wrote:Failed in Charlotte.
Does anyone know what the overall pass rate was?

I have been out of law school for about 5 years now. I was working in financial services as a consultant and hated it so I decided to take the bar to try and practice. I tried to focus on all the NC specific things I didn't learn since I went to school out of state. It seemed like a lot of the stuff from law school was coming back pretty easily, but I guess it wasn't enough.

I used Ameribar as a prep course, not sure if I should stick with them for my retest or if there is a better option for folks who have failed the exam or been away from school for a while.
I feel the same. I did not spend sufficient time on the NC distinctions. I will be using Themis again. They are great, but I just need to stick to their schedule. Also, I bombed a lot of the essay questions that were civ pro or con law related. Good luck in Feb!

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KWall

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by KWall » Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:50 pm

I still did not get my letter. I live in Raleigh, I don't understand why it is so delayed. How nerve-racking. Congratulations to everyone who passed.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by mkaradzi » Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:29 pm

JMD.USMC wrote:Failed in Charlotte.
Does anyone know what the overall pass rate was?

I have been out of law school for about 5 years now. I was working in financial services as a consultant and hated it so I decided to take the bar to try and practice. I tried to focus on all the NC specific things I didn't learn since I went to school out of state. It seemed like a lot of the stuff from law school was coming back pretty easily, but I guess it wasn't enough.

I used Ameribar as a prep course, not sure if I should stick with them for my retest or if there is a better option for folks who have failed the exam or been away from school for a while.

Hi, sorry to hear that you failed, I am sure you'll pass in February - fingers crossed. Just a suggestion re AmeriBar cause I've been using it as well. I am a foreign lawyer who started with AmeriBar (their price was the main reason, additionally they allowed me to access the course much earlier than other companies), then bought BarMax's MBE potion of the course (I like their civil procedure lecture), then paid Themis which I canceled two days after I bought it (they have the best 1l courses for free but I bought their bar course too late thus had to return it - lost 250$, also returned Barbri extended LL.M course (useless) and again lost 250$). I also bought Barbri conviser, North Carolina, and MBE books, and finally got Kaplan that I will be using for the February exam (skipped the one in July cause I did not feel ready). Sounds crazy, I know, I spent thousands of dollars. But I've realize that NC bar exam is focused on NC distinctions and Ameribar is very weak when it comes to the distinctions. Barbri, Kaplan, and Themis are more detailed. Unfortunately, Ameribar does not cover the major distinctions. My suggestions: either buy Barbri Conviser mini review online, or get Kaplan or Themis. Kaplan is 1299 if you get it by August 31st. Tell them that you have already bought Amribar and they might reduce the price for additional 250$. You can try the same with Themis.
I am looking for a study partner - to go through flash cards once a week (Skype preferably) let me know if you are interested. Good luck.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by dreamofNYC » Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:31 pm

Hi, I am happy to partner with you! Doing Themis and I really like their program.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by mkaradzi » Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:12 pm

dreamofNYC wrote:Hi, I am happy to partner with you! Doing Themis and I really like their program.
great, sent a private message.

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snek

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by snek » Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:21 pm

Passed in Durham. Beyond thrilled about it, as I came away from the experience feeling certain that I had failed.

Congrats to all who passed. And sincere best of luck to all those who didn't get the result they wanted this time. You will get it in February.

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snek

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by snek » Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:23 pm

Am I the only one who's really interested in how their tablemates did? Really hoping those folks pulled it out, but didn't exchange info/phone numbers with the people I sat with.

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cricketlove00

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by cricketlove00 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:52 pm

snek wrote:Am I the only one who's really interested in how their tablemates did? Really hoping those folks pulled it out, but didn't exchange info/phone numbers with the people I sat with.
I was lucky enough to sit with someone from my school! I haven't heard of she passed or not yet.

Btw can they not have table mates FACE eachother like that? It was unnerving

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snek

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by snek » Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:00 pm

cricketlove00 wrote:
snek wrote:Am I the only one who's really interested in how their tablemates did? Really hoping those folks pulled it out, but didn't exchange info/phone numbers with the people I sat with.
I was lucky enough to sit with someone from my school! I haven't heard of she passed or not yet.

Btw can they not have table mates FACE eachother like that? It was unnerving
For sure it was! I was genuinely surprised by the arrangement. Not sure what I was expecting, but not that.

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cricketlove00

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by cricketlove00 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:35 pm

snek wrote:
cricketlove00 wrote:
snek wrote:Am I the only one who's really interested in how their tablemates did? Really hoping those folks pulled it out, but didn't exchange info/phone numbers with the people I sat with.
I was lucky enough to sit with someone from my school! I haven't heard of she passed or not yet.

Btw can they not have table mates FACE eachother like that? It was unnerving
For sure it was! I was genuinely surprised by the arrangement. Not sure what I was expecting, but not that.
Also it gave me 0 room. If we were on the long side of the table I'd have so much more room.

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by hipcatdaddio » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:25 pm

cricketlove00 wrote:
snek wrote:
cricketlove00 wrote:
snek wrote:Am I the only one who's really interested in how their tablemates did? Really hoping those folks pulled it out, but didn't exchange info/phone numbers with the people I sat with.
I was lucky enough to sit with someone from my school! I haven't heard of she passed or not yet.

Btw can they not have table mates FACE eachother like that? It was unnerving
For sure it was! I was genuinely surprised by the arrangement. Not sure what I was expecting, but not that.
Also it gave me 0 room. If we were on the long side of the table I'd have so much more room.
Man, I was lucky. My table mate never came back after the morning session of day 1. He didn't type much that session, so didn't really distract me.

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snek

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by snek » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:27 pm

hipcatdaddio wrote:
cricketlove00 wrote:
snek wrote:
cricketlove00 wrote:
snek wrote:Am I the only one who's really interested in how their tablemates did? Really hoping those folks pulled it out, but didn't exchange info/phone numbers with the people I sat with.
I was lucky enough to sit with someone from my school! I haven't heard of she passed or not yet.

Btw can they not have table mates FACE eachother like that? It was unnerving
For sure it was! I was genuinely surprised by the arrangement. Not sure what I was expecting, but not that.
Also it gave me 0 room. If we were on the long side of the table I'd have so much more room.
Man, I was lucky. My table mate never came back after the morning session of day 1. He didn't type much that session, so didn't really distract me.
Oh my god were you with the guy who showed up late and then bounced later? That was incredible.

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cricketlove00

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Re: North Carolina July 2017 Bar Results

Post by cricketlove00 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:34 pm

Where were you guys at? I was in McKinnon and there was crazy shit happening. This one girl next to me left after an hour or so both sessions on both days. Then on the end of the first day this girl kept trying to get up and leave and the proctor was not having it. I thought she was going to punch the proctor because the girl was like audibly saying "I have to get out of here" over and over.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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