Farber vs. Groszkiewicz

[slam]

Any thoughts on which might be the better seminar?

[phila]

I heard that the one in Temple (Philly) is good.

[slam]

Thanks, but I think the one in Philly (Temple U.) is a class rather than a seminar.

[yeppers-wsmn]

is there info. on the spring seminars available yet?

I've heard the Farber one is better, but haven't personally been to either.

[ch]

I took both Farber and Rick G's seminars for the old EA-2 exam (so this may not be representative of current material). They are both good, but seemed to have slightly different emphasis.

Please excuse the length, but this may be important in your success on the exam and thus i think its worth the detail.

Farber - his seminar was shorter (3 day weekend type)and seemed to emphasize the "odd" topics that would help you earn points on questions that others might skip. The philosophy seemed to be "everyone can do minimum funding/full funding limit/maximum deductible calculation, etc. You need to differentiate yourself by knowing how to do multi-employer plan withdrawal liability and other obscure things that arent difficult if you just spend a few minutes learning them and doing the problems." Farber had little in terms of prepared outlines. He did a few summaries of the odd topics, but that was about it. The rest was working problems.

Rick G's seminar was a full week, and he used the other approach - ie "80% of this exam is on 4 topics (or however many big ones there are). If I can help you perfect answering these questions you can pass the exam without being distracted by lots of small topics that may or may not show up in any given year". Rick has lots of high quality hand out material. I used it as reference years after earning my EA.

Both require a good amount of studying prior to the seminars. I liked Rick's more because I was away from the distractions of work and home for a full week. This may have been the most important factor in my success. Farber's was a local seminar that i drove home from every day, so I didnt have that isolation.

They are both VERY knowledgable, and each would be valuable depending on your strengths. I recommend purchasing Rick's handouts even if you dont attend his seminar.

Good Luck!

[sb_jim]

I have taken a Dave Farber seminar (EA-2) and have used Rick G's seminar slides to study. For the EA exams I highly advise taking a seminar. You probably can't do any better than one of these two. Dave Farber's old exam solutions are the best. Rick's slides are better than Actex for summarizing.

Look at the timing, travel, and your work/study schedule and I'm sure the right seminar will be the one that fits best. If you still can't decide, flip a coin.