There are a lot of prep options. Here is what a professor thinks of them.

Students preparing for the NCE and NCMHCE are sold a great deal: study guides, question banks, video courses, boot camps, apps. Some of it is good. Much of it repeats the same content at very different prices, and a few products are out of date or simply wrong about how the exam works.

This page is organized in three parts.

First, the official sources from NBCC: the handbooks, content outlines, and registration pages you should read before spending a dollar, because they are the only authoritative description of the exam.

Second, the free tools on this site, which cover most of what paid products offer.

Third, the prep books and courses students ask about most often, each with a short review of what it does well, what it lacks, and who it suits.

The reviews are Dr. Wichterman's own, based on reading and using the materials and on nineteen years of teaching and supervising counselors who used them. No company has paid for placement on this page. The site is supported by ads served by Google, which are labeled and have no influence on what is said here.

Official sources. Read these before anything else.

New to the process? Our step-by-step registration guide walks through board approval, the Credentialing Gateway, scheduling, accommodations and retakes.

Before you buy anything, use these.

Everything here is free with a Google sign-in. Designed and reviewed by Dr. W. Teaching counselors? The faculty page shows how programs can use these tools with their students.

If you buy one thing, buy the right one.

These are the materials I recommend to my own students, with what each does well and who it suits. Buy used where you can; editions change slowly and the content areas do not.