from what i can tell, about 99% of people that pass the leed exam have never worked on a leed project or gone through the certification process.

I'm not sure that anyone cares about leed anymore (maybe gov't projects)  I'd focus on IDP and getting licensed

I think that LEED needs to change. I think PASSIVHAUS is the better system. Additionally, I think the American Licensing process has become too easy... People always respect that which isn't obtained easily.. 

LEED is a weak ass marketing scheme - 3rd party green building verification.  I'm going to start my own green building verification organization called F-LEED - Future Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.  

It's been a couple of years, but I swear it was required to have experience on a LEED project before being allowed to test for the LEED AP exam. 

In my case, my experience on the project was important for passing the exam, because I sure didn't study any for the exam otherwise. 

bump

Most of the threads here (like this one) get hijacked into a discussion about the USGBC bureaucracy, the issues with LEED, etc. But for young professionals, it seems like LEED credentials are expected, or at least somewhat sought after. 

That said, I'm considering working on accreditation this summer for LEED AP BD+C. I haven't taken the GA exam, so I'd be taking the combined GA and AP section exam. Can anyone advise on study materials? The Archinect threads have a lot of scattered info and I really would like to avoid throwing down a few hundred dollars for the USGBC reference guides if there is a better way to get the info.

I took the BD+C test under 2009 not V4 and I'm not sure how much it has changed but...

1. I was required to have experience to sit for the test, but it really didn't help me answer any questions. As long as you study the process you shouldn't have any problems. 

2. They ask lots of very specific questions about credits and strategies to accomplish them. You really have to know everything in the Reference Guide. They do give you the name of every credit they are asking about, not just the number.  I borrowed it from the library instead of buying it, most libraries can get it through interlibrary loan if they don't have it. 

3. The GA exam is a lot easier, you still need to know most of the BD+C credits but not the specifics. The credit overviews online have all the information they ask about on the GA exam. 

Looks like v4 doesn't require experience on a LEED project to sit for the exam. A lot of the online resources I'm looking at are saying there is an overload of information in the Reference Guide- this sounds largely like part of the sketchy marketing schemes that various study material providers are using to sell their products, but that's why I'm asking. Did you just pick up the Reference Guide and buckle down, or do you think it's worthwhile forking out the extra cash for a study manual?

I took the GA and BD+C separately in 2013.  If you take them together and fail one then you fail both.  I did them as close together as I could schedule them, I think it was 2 weeks apart. Didn't need experience for the GA, but did for BD+C.  All I did was log some submittal information on the office the firm I was working for at the time just moved into...they never wrapped up the certification project, and it never got its classification.  All I studied was the BD+C reference guide, The Core Concepts guide, and the individual GA and BD+C exam guides all published by USGBC.  Really just read through them all once the day before the pertinent exam.  

It's a pain in the ass to keep up with the continuing education in addition to what the states require to maintain licensure, but now I have it and my firm markets that we are capable of doing LEED projects because of it.  

What worked for me was using the Reference Guide and focusing primarily on the summary part at the beginning of each credit section, and on any charts, illustrations, and definitions for each credit.  The Reference Guide is indeed several hundred pages long, but it's not particularly dense - it's full of diagrams, blank pages between sections, decorative pages with the USGBC logo, appendices, indexes, etc.  If you just don't let yourself get intimidated by the size of the book and spend a week or so focusing on the actual content you'll do fine.

I did not find third party study aids to be very helpful for a few reasons:  1. They're usually written by people who took the exam quite a while ago, and then they keep updating these study guides for each new version, but they're more and more out of touch with the current test and the current LEED system.  2. Some contain errors, and then you have to find the errata to the study guides and mark up your guide - it's confusing and a waste of time.  3. The mock questions in those guides sometimes give the wrong impression about the relative ease or difficulty of the real test, as well as the type of content you'll see.   Not to name any names, but certain popular study guides are self-published by people who took the legacy LEED exam more than 10 years ago before the specialties even existed, in LEED v2, and are non-native English speakers with no editing help.

LEED v4 no longer has credit numbers, so it may actually be easier to study and understand the info, because instead of a credit number you're always thinking of the name of the credit and how that topic relates to the content.

Sounds like the USGBC stuff is the way to go, if only it weren't almost as expensive as the actual exam.. 

Side note in case any current students are reading this-  it looks like it's cheaper to leverage the $100 student discounted GA exam fee, and then take the AP BD+C separately (rather than take the AP combined exam).