Princeton Review and Kaplan LiveOnline LSAT Class Forum

[Solerpower]

I go to college where the nearest classroom LSAT prep course is 35 miles away. Factor in the cost of driving and the inevitable snow delays/cancelations, my best option seems to be the LiveOnline course.

Now motivation not withstanding, what are the benifits and problems with the LiveOnline course, any opinions on the matter, Etc..

[joe_45]

I am in Korea right now so I couldnt take a class either. I payed for the Kaplan LSAT premium online course, started to take it but realized the Powerscore bibles were way better. If you take an online course i would not take any of Kaplans. The only benefit of the course were all the prep materials and explanations. But I think you could get the same from studying the bibles and the deconstructed series. If i could go back i would go with the powerscore class.

[KaplanLSATInstructor]

A quick note regarding the previous post: there is a major difference between the "Premium Online" course and the "Live Online" course that we offer. The Premium course is merely the books and online materials, with pre-recorded lessons available online.

The Live Online course is a full class, identical to the classroom course, taught by a live instructor over the Internet. The classes are interactive, allowing you to ask questions through a chat function or answer questions via polls provided by the teacher.

Additionally, by being part of a class, you have an instructor you can contact at any time (via e-mail, most likely) with any questions you have between sessions.

Personally, I haven't heard much feedback from students about the live courses, so I couldn't offer much information in the way of opinion. However, as with any of our courses, you get access to every question from every PrepTest, so a lot of your progress will be made in the effort you put outside of the class -- which would be the same regardless of whether your class was in person or online.

Hope this helps a little.

- Chris

[Solerpower]

I know what Live Online is, but does anyone have first or second hand knowledge of it?

[tomwatts]

I'm trained to teach TPR LSAT LiveOnline, though I never actually have (have done online tutoring, though). My teacher friends give rave reviews of it; because there are two teachers, you have one doing most of the general instruction and the other handling any possible tech issues, individual questions, etc. As a result, it's very easy to get any of your questions answered either one-on-one or from the general teacher. You also get access to recorded lessons, some of which I did, and we worked very hard to make them very good. You get all the same books as any other course student, so you have access to all the released tests, etc.

So yeah, I completely endorse our LiveOnline course. There are options of ours that I endorse under certain conditions, but the two that I think will work for anybody regardless are the in-person Hyperlearning course and the LiveOnline. Those are the two best options with us.

[cubswin]

I'm trained to teach TPR LSAT LiveOnline, though I never actually have (have done online tutoring, though). My teacher friends give rave reviews of it; because there are two teachers, you have one doing most of the general instruction and the other handling any possible tech issues, individual questions, etc. As a result, it's very easy to get any of your questions answered either one-on-one or from the general teacher. You also get access to recorded lessons, some of which I did, and we worked very hard to make them very good. You get all the same books as any other course student, so you have access to all the released tests, etc.

So yeah, I completely endorse our LiveOnline course. There are options of ours that I endorse under certain conditions, but the two that I think will work for anybody regardless are the in-person Hyperlearning course and the LiveOnline. Those are the two best options with us.

Interesting. I figured those LiveOnline courses were a total scam, but the two-teachers aspect is a nice touch.

[newe1344]

Hello:

Thank you for your time on this, please interpret this letter as an unbiased response to your business choices. I recently signed up for a live online course to prepare for the GMAT. Since signing up, my situation has changed and where I needed to take your course online, I now have the chance to take it in a classroom setting.

However, when I called to cancel my online course, I was told I would not receive a refund. Ridiculous, is what I thought, as I have not received the course materials and have not logged in to view any course content.

I made the argument that if I did not receive a full refund I would not purchase the classroom course from your company. This argument was not interpreted with logic and instead the ego of the teacher got involved. She told me I could either pay a penalty of $100 or apply my money to the classroom course. She then proceeded to tell me about the costs in processing my online course for the time I was signed up, but did not use.

I happen to be a web developer and as a consequence I write and manipulate applications that handle data all day. I can tell you from experience, it costs next to nothing to "process" my online course registration. I digress...

The point is, I was planning on getting a full refund, managing that money until the time came to sign up for the classroom course in Denver this summer, and apply it there. However, I am nettled to pay the $100 "processing fee" (which is really just money taken for services not received), so I will not be signing up for you classroom course this summer, unless you wish to improve my view of your company.

Additionally, I now consider that $100 sunk cost. So in response, I have decided to "work" the money off. I get paid $37.4555 per hour at my job. So I will work online for roughly 2.67 hours explaining on forums and blog posts why potential customers should avoid your company at all costs. I am 26 years old and belong to a demographic where many of my peers are likely to go to graduate school. I promise to relate my experience dealing with you to them.

Cheers, I had better get started I'm down to 2.34 hours of work left.

Most Sincerely,
Mike N.

(Letter to Princeton Review regarding their LiveOnline course)

[tomwatts]

(Letter to Princeton Review regarding their LiveOnline course)

You do realize that no one from the Princeton Review other than me reads this forum, right? And further, that I'm just some random teacher who thinks it's fun to talk about the LSAT and therefore have no power to do anything, right?

Nonetheless, I'll check into your situation, as I do with any situation that sounds weird on here. I've never been witness to the situation you're talking about, but I've been witness to plenty of the reverse (people taking in-person classes and then changing to online at the last minute) and we didn't charge any sort of processing fee or penalty, so I will confess that I have no idea what the rules are in the situation you're talking about. I'll find out.

[tomwatts]

I'm not entirely sure what happened here. There seems to have been some miscommunication. I talked to the teacher, and she said that you were enrolled in an Online course and had access to the Online Student Center for a month before you tried to cancel. She gave you two options: a partial refund, based on the fact that you'd had access to your course for a month, or transfering the full amount to pay for an in-person course. There is a price difference between the online course and the in-person course, so there would still be a charge to transfer into the in-person course, but it would ONLY be the difference in price, with no additional fees.

These options are, by the way, still available to you. If you'd like to transfer to an in-person course and simply pay the difference between the two courses, call your teacher back and she'll happily do this for you.