Studicata Bar Prep Review

Outline: Studicata Review

• Studicata Bar Review: How It Works
• Pricing & Course Options
• What We Like About Studicata 
• What We Don’t Like About Studicata 
• Verdict: Studicata Bar Review & Attack Outlines

As this is a long, detailed review, use the jump-to links above to skip ahead to the section you’d like to read about.

Studicata Bar Review: How It Works

Studicata is a little different than most other bar review courses I’ve taken and reviewed. For one, they place a emphasis on active review over passive review. Here’s how it works. 

Everyday when you log in, you’re provided with a daily schedule. You go to that day’s activities (which are integrated directly into the study calendar and portal), and see what you have to do. I wish this outline was a bit more clear.

Most days start with a quick warm-up that takes about 45 minutes. These warm-ups consist almost exclusively of reviewing your attack outlines.

Each day covers a different subtopic tested on the bar exam (whether MBE or MEE/MPT), and the warm-up will direct you to review the attack outline for that subtopic (e.g. “Review Business Associations (Agency and Partnership) in the Attack Outline for 45-60 minutes.”).

That portion of the daily assignment is straightforward. From there, you will generally complete 2 to 4 assessments.

Assessments are effectively just quizzes, which you work directly in the program from your schedule dashboard. You hop on, do the quiz, and then review the answer explanations afterwards. The quizzes at times were easy and other times difficult, so I question their decisions around this. 

How many problems will be given an assessment ranges fairly widely. Sometimes it’s just 5 questions, other times it’s 25. It totally depends and inconsistent. Then, as noted, you spend a good chunk of time reviewing your answers. 

For every problem you work, Studicata expects you to spend about 5-8x that amount of time reviewing the problem. It’s an overstated request as I usually spent less than 5x the amount of time.

Beyond the assessments, however, Studicata will periodically drop in more prominent “subject exams.” Sometimes, rather than 3 assessments for that day, they’ll have you work a 100-question MBE set of mixed problems. This is intended to act as a mini-exam, but falls short of true exam-like conditions. 

Obviously, however, at 5x the amount of time to review as you take to work problems, you could never do a 100-question review session in one day. So Studicata will break the review portion up into several sections, and they have you review your subject exam over the following days – usually 33 questions at a time. These multiple sessions can be very hard to follow.

And that’s generally it for the primary “active” review portion of each day. You warm up, you work assessments or subject exams, then review your answers in detail. This usually takes 5-7 hours. 

After that, Studicata usually opens it up to you to self-direct your own “passive” review. This entails watching video lectures, studying your outlines, and working flashcards. 

Basically, they direct you to spot your weaknesses and hit outlines, flashcards and videos as needed to shore up your weak spots. I found it at times to highlight areas which I was in fact very knowledgeable about rather than my weaknesses.

The video lectures are available from your dashboard (under a different tab), and the outlines and flashcards are available in PDF. In fact, outside of the assessments and video lessons, most materials are available in hefty PDF form – not directly viewable within the portal. This includes your Frequency Guide, Attack Outlines, Essay Templates, QuickSheets and Flashcards. Not having direct view access can be a challenge. 

The Frequency Guide is more or less what it sounds like and breaks down how often bar topics have appeared on recent exams. The Attack Outlines are your more detailed, substantive, black letter law outlines. In total, there are about 200 pages worth of Attack Outline material across the various subjects. 

The Essay Templates are suggestive outlines on how to set up essays in the MEE portion of the exam, and cover what to discuss. The QuickSheets are condensed outlines in the most distilled down form.

You can use these in the final days leading up to the exam, but I wish the QuickSheets had more depth. And lastly, the Flashcards are just what they sound like. They contain a term on the front and a definition on the back – but this definition can have more information if I were to design it myself.

And that’s about it for the Studicata course in a nutshell – it does lack some coursework features of other Bar prep providers. There are some other features, like progress trackers, but that is by and large the main coursework. 

👉 Studicata not a good fit? Check out Kaplan Bar Review

Pricing & Course Options

Studicata has a simple set of bar exam prep offerings compared to Barbri and others. They have a free course and a paid course. The classic freemium model. 

The free course, as you can probably imagine, contains very limited content. It would make an average supplement to another paid bar review course, but is not workable as a standalone study product. 

The paid, full course costs around $1,995. This is a little cheaper than most other big name courses from Barbri and Themis, but Studicata lacks many features. 

So in terms of value, Studicata as a bar course is not a great deal as it lacks major benefits vs. the others (Check out Quimbee and Bar Prep Hero).

What We Like About The Studicata Bar Course

Knowing how the Studicata course works, let’s next turn to what I liked about this course and what I wasn’t crazy about. Let’s start with the good news. 

Decent Attack Outlines & QuickSheets 

The clearest highlight of the Studicata package in my eyes are the Attack Outlines and QuickSheets. 

It was a somewhat streamlined bar review content. Although the detail in there could be better.

They cut out all the treatise-like fluff you typically get in law school, and zero in on the only some of stuff you need to know for the bar (but not 100% complete). 

Reasonably Digestible Lessons

I also thought the Studicata lessons were a bit digestible. Over the years, mega companies like Barbri have continued to add and add to the course. This makes these courses content heavy, but I don’t mind having the depth of a Barbri.

Studicata believes that the bar exam is all about optimizing your studies, but they can do a better job. As such, you really need to focus your limited time and effort where you’re going to get the most proverbial bang for your buck. 

So while Studicata doesn’t waste your time with rarely tested topics, they could place extra emphasis on learning how to get questions right. 

The content that is there is sometimes easy to follow, but the course overall does feel a little light on content.  

I personally prefer leaner, smarter courses like this, and they would need to rework this outline in the future.

What We Don’t Like About Studicata 

While there were a couple things I liked about Studicata, there were also a few things I wasn’t so crazy about. Let me break those down for you below. 

No Prep Books or Printed Materials

For one, I like prep books and printed outlines. I like laying in bed, flipping through outlines, and pacing the house as I read them. I struggle to sit still in a desk chair all day. 

But because the Studicata materials are 100% online, it makes this super difficult. Sure there is the mobile app, but I don’t like pacing back and forth looking at my phone – it’s small and bugs me.

And I could print all the PDFs, I suppose, but that’s a few hundred pages. I’d have to go to Staples or a print shop to do that.

Personally, I would like to see Studicata print their materials in color, bind them and send them to students. Maybe I’m old school, but I think this would be a big value add – my eyes just read better on paper.

👉 Want to review another good option? Check out Kaplan Bar Review

Very Disjointed Feel

One other issue I noted is that the program overall has a disjointed feel. The daily assessments are integrated into the schedule in the online portal, but otherwise, things are a super scattered.

You have to go to a different section of the portal to access videos (they are not integrated into the main coursework), and obviously the PDF outlines and flashcards are standalone. 

Together, this just gives the course overall a very disjointed feel. I mean, I can follow and know where I need to go to access materials, but I would like to see some more seamless integration here. 

Working everything – outlines, videos and assessments – directly into the daily schedule would be a big improvement. In a perfect world, only the printed materials (which I want from above) would be separate from the other study materials. 

Video Lectures Need Improvement

Studicata videos need improvement and don’t have nearly the production value that others do (see Kaplan for that).

The founder and lead instructor Michael appears on screen in front of a whiteboard and delivers lessons in about 45- to 60-minute chunks. He can do a better job of explaining the content and making complex topics easier to understand. He can also be more engaging.

👉 Want a solid alternative? Quimbee Bar Review

Verdict: Studicata Bar Review & Attack Outlines

I think there are some things to like about the full Studicata bar review course. 

I thought the Attack Outlines and QuickSheets weren’t bad. And overall, the lessons are digestible but there is room for improvement. It needs to be engaging and easy to follow. 

I wasn’t crazy about there being no printed materials, and the program did have a disorganized feel, and the videos were confusing. 

While it has a decent price point, Studicata doesn’t offer excellent value. I think for those looking for a solid bar course to tackle the UBE, there are better options. 

👉 Want to read up on another BAR prep provider? Check out Kaplan Bar Review