<p>Many of us are in fields where passing a state and/or national licensure exam is mandatory. But agreed, the school shoudln’t “guarantee” anything. If the pass rate is over 98% for the graduates, than that is IMO suggestive of adequate training. There is another thread about the for-profit law schools and the correlation between low LSAT admission scores and the probability of failing the Bar exam. Now THAT, IMO, is an important observation a potential incoming student should make note of. </p>
<p>I agree that he COULD contact the school he attended to see if they have suggestions on how to be better prepared for the exam. That said, some review courses do offer free or discounted refresher review courses for folks who fail the exams and he could double-check that if he wants to. I know folks who took the bar exam repeatedly before finally passing or going on to do something that didn’t require passing the bar exam.</p>
<p>If your S is reluctant to bring this up with the friend, I think your S’s instincts should be honored. If this friend wants advice, he knows he could ask around for it. I’m sure he values your S"s support and non-critical friendship.</p>
<p>I am going to take the opposite position. If an institution continues to pass a student through a program, it does have some obligation to that student. Now, can it promise/guarantee board pass? No, because the boards are administered by a 3rd party, BUT I don’t think it gets to just say, “Well, too bad,” especially to a student known to have struggled all through the program. What sort of institutional ethics apply in a situation where the faculty in a program know a student is struggling, may have doubts about that student’s ability to become licensed, but keep raking in the tuition? At the very least, a documented conversation has to occur where someone says to the student, “We have doubts about your ability to pass the licensing exams.” </p>
<p>I dont know about PA boards, but the exams Ive taken were all day affairs.
The tests for each course were only an hour or two, but the all day exam wasn’t as manageable.</p>
<p>I am assuming the student went to Gannon because that is the school mentioned? If their pass rate is so high, it’s obvious that the students are well prepared academically. And if the student needed Bs or better to continue in the program, and received these grades, how would the school suspect he would be unlikely to pass the licensing exam? I am wondering if the student has more of a problem with the format/length of the exam, rather than with the exam material per se. And how would that be the school’s responsibility?</p>
<p>A note about the bar exam: it contains a lot of material that isn’t taught at all at some law schools, so students are essentially required to take a bar review course in order to prepare. So, for example, if Harvard Law School grads have a high pass rate, it’s more thanks to BAR/BRI than it is to Harvard.</p>
<p>But it seems to me that if the curriculum is supposed to prepare students for the test, then the university has some obligation to verify that it is doing that–there will still be some individual students who will have problems, of course.</p>
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<p>If the articles I read stating there’s a high correlation between one’s LSAT score and likelihood of passing the bar is any indication, one could also surmise that such pass rates could also be attributed to students who do well on the LSAT.</p>
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<p>It isn’t just an issue for for-profit law schools. There were loud outcries and even calls to close down CUNY Law School from the mass media in my city some years back after news broke that around half of its graduating class failed the bar exam and how it accepted many students with middling/below 50 percentile LSAT scores. </p>
<p>Perhaps to some extent that is true, cobrat, but the bar exam is not an aptitude test like the LSAT. It includes questions on substantive law that you either know or you don’t. You can’t pass it without actually learning quite a lot of substantive material. Probably people who did well on the LSAT are better at learning the material, but I don’t care how well they did on LSAT–if they’re graduating from Harvard, they won’t pass the New York bar without BAR/BRI or one of its competitors.</p>
<p>Well, they can self-study; no need to take a bar review course from a commercial provider. That’s what I did back in the dark ages. </p>
<p>The reasons that additional study is necessary for the bar exam are simple:</p>
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<li><p>Law varies from state to state, so a national law school isn’t going to be teaching the individual differences from state to state.</p></li>
<li><p>Bar exams cover subjects like family law that many law students don’t take classes in but can be learned quickly and easily enough for purposes of the bar. </p></li>
<li><p>The best law schools aren’t in the business of teaching the specific rules that are tested on some bar exams. The specific substantive rules change over time. Rather, they are in the business of providing students with a strong foundation in the theoretical basis that underlies the law and the various sub-disciplines. </p></li>
<li><p>Bar exams aren’t that hard, but there have been well-publicized cases of brilliant lawyers failing on the first attempt, essentially because the test-takers sometimes arrogantly go in cold, thinking that they wing it without any study at all. Almost every bar exam-taker will need at least a couple of hours of self-study to learn the quirky details that are likely to be tested and that are sometimes contrary to logic.</p></li>
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<p>In order to pass such exam (including MCATs, any boards at Med. School), one needs to prepare specifically for exam and work very very hard preparing. Nobody, not a single person, not at Harvard, not at Stanford or nay other top places will take this type of exam relying on the academic classes at UG or even at Med. School. It just does not happen. So, the example in OP is no exception at all. The failure to pass is the result of insufficient preparation. In addition, if the person had primarily A, then would say that at least he tried hard in classes. Mostly Bs would not make it in most programs anyway.
Bringing up this subject is useless, nobody knows how the person studied, what type of scores he was getting in practice tests (which have to higher than expected exam score). We simply do not know anything, no recommendations are valid. I know about MCAT (I would say that it is somewhat related). Kids have to study several hours every day for many weeks and many take Kaplan (but some do not). Forward to Med. School (which is not comparable, but for the sake of mentionning another board test), my D. studied for 14 hours every day for about 7 weeks to pass her Step 1 Board at Med. School.<br>
PE (professional engineer) is not anywhere near this level (my H. is PE), not even anyhow close. Do not know about CPA.</p>
<p>For OP’s son’s friend, it is important to figure out where he is lacking in terms of the exam. Is it one subject area or many? Is it the type of question that throws him off? (this can often be the case with science as it becomes an issues of reading the question properly.) If he didn’t know the subjects then he must review more and perhaps needs better tutoring. If he doesn’t really get the questions due to the complicated wording, then he needs a tutor who can help with that.</p>
<p>Back in the day, I knew several people who took three times to pass the bar. One person I knew never passed. I took bar exams in NY an NJ one time each and had no trouble. Both times I took a comprehensive review course, and did additional studying. One course was about 20 hrs per week class time for 5 weeks. You also needed to study about 20 or more hours per week outside of class, plus a full week of just study before the test. Perhaps some gave it less effort, but by that calculation, was about 250 hours of study (at least the first time). My second exam was 9 years after graduation, and I did less, but I probably still studied at least 100 hours! </p>
<p>How can it be the school’s fault if everyone else passed? He should talk to advisors there to see if they have any suggestion. That should be no problem.</p>
<p>Bar exams are also endurance tests. In CA, it was a full day exam that lasted most of 5 days–4 days of essays and one day of multiple choice. It was grueling and quite different from most other exams most of us had experienced. Of necessity, bar exams cover some federal and a LOT of state laws. The HI bar exam was somewhat similar to me in format but the curve was much more generous as most folks passed that exam while the pass rate in CA is below 50%.</p>
<p>The BAR/BRI review course I took offered one free refresher for whomever didn’t pass the bar exam. I am not sure how often they had to honor that free offer, but that seemed like a nice thing to me. I believe very few of my classmates didn’t pass the bar exam, which our school was very proud of (in fact, I think our class had the highest ever pass rate and one of the highest rates in CA).</p>
<p>I think a common coaching comment applies here - I can prepare them all I want but they’re the ones who have to play the game.</p>
<p>Nursing schools are moving towards a greater emphasis on practice tests for the RN exam. My daughter’s program now requires that they take various practice tests and prep classes every semester after they start nursing classes. The intent is to tell students where they need additional emphasis in their studies. Those test results will also tell the faculty what areas need attention for multiple students. </p>
<p>re MiamiDAP- what is your personal background that you know how much studying is required? It depends on the student.</p>
<p>Son and physician H have excellent memories and don’t need all of the time you claim is needed to pass tests. Son did not study to get a 2400 on the SAT, he got in the 700’s on the SAT II subject test only using his calculus class review of precalc (he should have studied on his own to do even better). The Bar exam is different than the various medical board exams- the bar is state specific while the others are national. Nursing exams can be state specific so someone educated in a different state may have to learn material others learned instate.</p>
<p>Some people pay for commercial test prep at various levels, others do it on their own. You can’t generalize about the amount of test prep required. It appears that the case from the OP is a student who needs to go beyond the classroom and learn.</p>
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<p>How much of that is due to California’s allowing of graduates of non-ABA accredited but California accredited private law schools and self-studiers “reading the law” to take the California bar?</p>