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Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 3:46 pm
by tropicalvibezz
Hi!

I am currently applying to take the bar for a third time. I took MA in July 2017 and missed by 3 points. Took NH in Feb 2018 and missed by 6 points.

I took Barbri for both. Paid the $2,500 for the first time and did the free repeat guarantee.

I am in the midst of talking to Barbri and they won't budge on their Repeater course fee.

Who did y'all speak to when negotiating the price down with Barbri?

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 5:54 pm
by Nightcrawler
Save your money on a better company. If their method didn't work twice, switch up. Not criticizing, I just had the same experience as you, switched up, and had a big increase in my score. Adaptibar helped a lot for the MBE.

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 6:07 pm
by sparkytrainer
If you didn't pass twice with their program, what makes you wanna try a third? Go do something different! (and much cheaper)

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 8:14 am
by tropicalvibezz
Nightcrawler wrote:Save your money on a better company. If their method didn't work twice, switch up. Not criticizing, I just had the same experience as you, switched up, and had a big increase in my score. Adaptibar helped a lot for the MBE.
sparkytrainer wrote:If you didn't pass twice with their program, what makes you wanna try a third? Go do something different! (and much cheaper)
True...any other recommendations aside from AdaptiBar?

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 12:20 pm
by LockBox
tropicalvibezz wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:Save your money on a better company. If their method didn't work twice, switch up. Not criticizing, I just had the same experience as you, switched up, and had a big increase in my score. Adaptibar helped a lot for the MBE.
sparkytrainer wrote:If you didn't pass twice with their program, what makes you wanna try a third? Go do something different! (and much cheaper)
True...any other recommendations aside from AdaptiBar?
The recommendation is to attack your weakness. If it's MBE, then i'd vouch for adaptibar too. If writing is what is getting you, find a former bar grader and ask them to grade/analyze 20-40 essays. Take all of your state's released bar essays/questions and do them under test conditions. Stop paying barbri to watch videos...it's time to do some work.

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 8:44 pm
by tropicalvibezz
LockBox wrote:
tropicalvibezz wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:Save your money on a better company. If their method didn't work twice, switch up. Not criticizing, I just had the same experience as you, switched up, and had a big increase in my score. Adaptibar helped a lot for the MBE.
sparkytrainer wrote:If you didn't pass twice with their program, what makes you wanna try a third? Go do something different! (and much cheaper)
True...any other recommendations aside from AdaptiBar?
The recommendation is to attack your weakness. If it's MBE, then i'd vouch for adaptibar too. If writing is what is getting you, find a former bar grader and ask them to grade/analyze 20-40 essays. Take all of your state's released bar essays/questions and do them under test conditions. Stop paying barbri to watch videos...it's time to do some work.
Thank you for the advice! My biggest concern is I am not sure what type of study plan to set up day to day. Do you have any you would recommend?

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Thu May 17, 2018 3:06 pm
by Nightcrawler
tropicalvibezz wrote:
LockBox wrote:
tropicalvibezz wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:Save your money on a better company. If their method didn't work twice, switch up. Not criticizing, I just had the same experience as you, switched up, and had a big increase in my score. Adaptibar helped a lot for the MBE.
sparkytrainer wrote:If you didn't pass twice with their program, what makes you wanna try a third? Go do something different! (and much cheaper)
True...any other recommendations aside from AdaptiBar?
The recommendation is to attack your weakness. If it's MBE, then i'd vouch for adaptibar too. If writing is what is getting you, find a former bar grader and ask them to grade/analyze 20-40 essays. Take all of your state's released bar essays/questions and do them under test conditions. Stop paying barbri to watch videos...it's time to do some work.
Thank you for the advice! My biggest concern is I am not sure what type of study plan to set up day to day. Do you have any you would recommend?
That really depends on you. I used to study my outline, repeat a few times (that would take a few days per subject) read essays about that subject (as many as I could), make a checklist of issues to write essays (1-2 pages MAX), memorize it, read Emanuel's S&T for that subject, do Emanuel's questions on that subject, rinse and repeat for every subject. Once the first subject is done, I used to do every day 10-20 questions on Adaptibar of that subject until I can move onto the next one. Then, once the MBE subjects are all over, start to do mixed questions every day.

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 11:08 pm
by GoldenPuppy
FYI: it seems the jig's up. Probably thanks to the pinned thread on this subject.

BARBRI would not negotiate, other than by offering public interest pricing. (I paid $2,000.)

I didn't push Themis much, but same thing, public interest pricing only.

In retrospect, I'm glad I waited three years before signing on the dotted line with BARBRI, but those in the class of 2021 and later should consider that the spectrum of possibilities has apparently dwindled to 2: either the price won't change at all or the price will go up on you. Starting with this year, if you're able to get public interest pricing, that might be the way to go. Of course, if there's an economic recession, they'll most likely start negotiating again because they'll want to make their mortgage payments and such.

Edit: Forgot to mention that they agreed to waive the book deposit fee ($250?).

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 12:08 am
by nixy
Were you negotiating with them just recently? Because it makes sense to me that they're not going to negotiate if you haven't yet signed up for this summer's course - they're going to know you don't have a lot of time/options left and can hold firm. I would imagine it's still possible to negotiate if you start earlier in law school. (If you did that, well, never mind.)

Edit: I'm confused why you're negotiating with Barbri when you're also getting LORs to apply for school?

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 12:22 pm
by michaelt
Sorry to hear that Barbri did not work out.

Interestingly that Barbri has just discontinued their "Study Smart MBE" feature, so their students no longer can practice MBE questions by selecting particular MBE topics, mixing MBE topics they want to focus on, specifying a number of questions to practice, or focusing only on those questions that were answered wrong in the past. This is a huge disappointment for repeaters who failed the February exam and now have to use the guarantee. Obviously it is even more disappointment for those who take Barbri for the first time as they can never use "Study Smart MBE" at all. Understandably, this is excellent news for Adaptibar. Now Adaptibar is a must for the Barbri students.

I totally agree with the previous posters that since Barbri did not work out twice in the past, it is time to move on.

For those interested in a $45 discount for Adaptibar, please contact me at adaptibar_referral@yahoo.com.

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 12:57 pm
by JD28
Hey- I passed the UBE with a 287... highly recommend Studicata... here is a link to check it out ! Feel free to reach out to me with any questions https://studicata.samcart.com/referral/ ... AiZnb6rIEr

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 10:08 am
by GoldenPuppy
nixy wrote:Were you negotiating with them just recently? Because it makes sense to me that they're not going to negotiate if you haven't yet signed up for this summer's course - they're going to know you don't have a lot of time/options left and can hold firm. I would imagine it's still possible to negotiate if you start earlier in law school. (If you did that, well, never mind.)

Edit: I'm confused why you're negotiating with Barbri when you're also getting LORs to apply for school?
Yes, just recently.

LOL -- I'm not -- check out the dates (time stamps).

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 10:47 am
by nixy
Oops! Lol. My total bad. Sorry!

(I do think negotiating works better the further out you are from the exam - they know at this point you’re kind of stuck.)

Re: Negotiating with Barbri?

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 9:05 pm
by HangingAround
GoldenPuppy wrote:FYI: it seems the jig's up. Probably thanks to the pinned thread on this subject.

BARBRI would not negotiate, other than by offering public interest pricing. (I paid $2,000.)

I didn't push Themis much, but same thing, public interest pricing only.

In retrospect, I'm glad I waited three years before signing on the dotted line with BARBRI, but those in the class of 2021 and later should consider that the spectrum of possibilities has apparently dwindled to 2: either the price won't change at all or the price will go up on you. Starting with this year, if you're able to get public interest pricing, that might be the way to go. Of course, if there's an economic recession, they'll most likely start negotiating again because they'll want to make their mortgage payments and such.

Edit: Forgot to mention that they agreed to waive the book deposit fee ($250?).
Did no one have success with this with Barbri/Themis last year? If so that's too bad. I was planning on doing this come April.