I took the Premier Live Course last Fall and Step 3 in early 2008. At the time, I thought the Premier course was excellent and that the notes covered everything. If anything, I thought the notes may have been too detailed. Felt good going into Step 3.
Walked out of the 1st day of Step 3 quite certain I was going to fail. It was so bad, I thought about skipping the 2nd day, but I didn't. My hunch was correct and my score was below passing.
As mentioned, I felt the course was good and covered what I thought was the relevant material. In retrospect, they probably did cover the right material, but the test is basically all reasoning/judgement/management that it's hard for someone else to teach that to you. There were some people in the Premier course who had taken Kaplan and the consensus was that Premier was better than Kaplan. I wouldn't blame my failure on the course. There were tons of Q's on the test I would have missed even with the notes in front of me.
Wait until your scores come back and then post again either way. If it's bad news, consider Premier Review over Kaplan. Scores are emailed; actually, FSMB sends you an email with a link to the candidate site where you can view your score report. My score report date was 20 days after the 2nd day of my exam. FYI, the new miminum pass is 187 (up from 184). Good luck!
