[laughter95]

Just wanted to post up some pros and cons that I’ve found based on my experience that largely has been centered around using Yaeger CPA Review, and a bit on Becker now that I’ve switched to it for FAR and REG. I’ve been using Yaeger since 2013, studied the CPA on and off, and picked back up in 2015. Looking back, I would have much rather spent the extra $1-1.5k for Becker than to deal with frustration that I had with Yaeger.

Yaeger:

Pros:

1. It is a teaching-style course that is at a much slower pace compared to Becker. If you’re years out of school and feel that you’d need a lot more instruction, Yaeger is good for this.

2. Once you buy it, you can keep it. The online access lasts longer than the 18 or 24 months that is on your license agreement, and if you purchase USB’s of the lectures then they’re yours to keep forever.

3. You can request an “at-your-pace” shipment, meaning that Yaeger will ship to you the four exam parts separately. This will ensure that you get their latest review materials. For example, you can order the whole course in Q3 2015 and take FAR and REG in Q3/Q4 2015. When you are ready for AUD in Q1 2016, you can request them to ship you the AUD course ,and it should be the 2016 materials available to you.

4. I appreciated Cindy Simpson and Gary Bulmash’s instruction. I thought they were very clear in verbal and written communication of concepts.

But for me, this is where the advantages for Yaeger stop. All things considered, I would not go with this course again, despite saving $1k or whatever as compared to Becker.

Cons:

1. Their technology sucks. Their online streaming lectures freeze frequently, requiring a user to refresh the page multiple times. It’s incredibly disrupting. When you tap in to their “best customer service in the industry”, they invariably tell you to clear your cookies or try using Chrome or IE. Then you may email Joe Schwinger, their IT technical support, and he will tell you no new solutions and suggest that you coordinate with him a GoToMeeting, because no one will ever admit that their technology just isn’t sufficient for a professional review course.

2. The questions that should pop up in sync with the lecture sometimes don’t come up. It requires the user to play around with the video playback to get this to work.

3. Once a lecture was missing from the review course and they emailed me a separate Vimeo link so I could view it.

4. They assign you questions to practice, and many times these questions were either repeats of what was done in the lecture, or they are new. There is often discrepancy between what you are told to practice during the lecture, and what is actually published in their assigned questions handout.

5. They use the Wiley textbook and adapt their lecture according to it. There is a lot of disjointed page turning within the textbook. They also pride themselves on being able to highlight the important sections in the Wiley textbook, but I’ve found that Becker’s own textbook is much better as there is a lot less excess as compared to Wiley.

6. The offline lectures available on USB requires a customer to pay a separate fee in addition to the standard course material. I think this is unfair because I often had to switch between using the USB and the online streaming videos for AUD and BEC because one or the other wasn’t working properly. Both the FAR and BEC USBs had faulty video files which skipped major sections, anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes of lecture were unreadable.

7. I found Phil Yaeger’s instruction to be sloppy. He often misstated calculations or concepts and would backtrack, and this wasn’t edited out of the published lecture. It can be really confusing to follow. His notes written on the board are often messy and scattered.

8. It’s almost required that a user purchase Ninja MCQs in addition to the Yaeger review course because Yaeger’s review course has really poor test bank software. They used to use the Wiley Test Bank software but ended it in 2014. Now they have their own Yaeger Test Bank but it doesn’t provide immediate feedback after answering a question. Imagine having to complete 50 mcqs and only getting the grading after completing all of them. There are other annoyances beyond this but I can’t be bothered to write every one.

9. I learn a lot better when assigned tons of problems. Yaeger assigns probably 15-25% of the number of problems that Becker requires of students.

10. New students are often lost on how to approach the review course, hence why you’ll see on their student-only message board new posts of people asking exactly how they should go about completing the review course. In 2015 I noted in REG that they finally started with a “how-to-do this course” orientation video, in which Phil Yaeger tells us to “only do what I tell you” which ends up being largely inconsistent with the assigned homework questions, what is assigned on the online review course, and what is advised by the “Yaeger instructors” that advise on their student forum.

Becker Cons:

1. More expensive

Becker Pros:

1. Streamlined, straightforward review course. Watch the videos, underline, highlight, do the questions. The software appears to be glitchless. I really like that so much of the format mirrors what you’ll find at the Prometric center.

Alright well writing this was cathartic.

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[Kerrio25]

I've been disappointed with the Yaeger products. I passed FAR only using Yaeger but most of my studying relied on the Wiley MCQs. For AUD, I watched and liked the lectures but the MCQ weren't enough so I bought Ninja. The video lectures for BEC were awful. I only got through a few of them before I gave up. They were reading word for word from the text, which I could do on my own.

The Yaeger test bank is terrible. It's glitchy, simulations are a joke, and no instant feedback.

Customer Service has been okay. No problem ordering books. One question I never got a response. The second time I did.

I'd give them a 2/5.

FAR - 90
AUD - 88
BEC - 83
REG - 76

[Author]

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