The Week Nobody Talks About
Everyone talks about the review. The modules, the review centers, the six-month plans. What rarely gets discussed — honestly — is the week before. That final stretch where the gap between knowing and trusting becomes very, very real.
That’s exactly where Topnotch Talks Series 03 went.
Who Was in the Room
Hosted by Ar. Bernard Berberabe, founder of VIZCODE, Series 03 brought in two of the most recent LEA topnotchers: Benjamin Santiago, Top 6, and Mikes Jetigan, Top 1. No rehearsed speeches. Just an honest conversation about what the final week of LEA preparation actually looks like from the inside.
The Last Week Isn’t About Studying More
By the time the final week arrives, both topnotchers were clear: it’s no longer just a review problem.
Ar. Mikes described his last week as an effort to recenter — to remind himself why he was doing it at all. He had originally planned to take the June 2025 exam. Personal circumstances pushed him to January 2026 instead. That history was present going in. His last week, then, wasn’t about cramming. It was about deciding to trust the process anyway — to accept that he couldn’t learn everything, and that that was going to be okay.
Ar. Benjamin echoed the same posture. He was direct about it: by the final week, managing your mental state and doing your review carry equal weight. Not as a feel-good idea — as a practical reality. “It’s better to be at your best condition,” he said, “rather than studying pa.”
Most candidates know this. Most candidates don’t act on it.
If You’re Going to Cram Anything, Make It the Codes
When pressed on where to put their last hours of actual studying, both topnotchers landed on the same answer: the building codes.
Ar. Benjamin’s reasoning was straightforward. Codes are objective. BP-344, PD-957, BP-220 — when those questions appear, there is one correct answer. No interpretation, no best-answer gray area. That’s where time spent reviewing pays the most reliable return.
History of Architecture, by contrast, has no ceiling. Ar. Benjamin shared that he spent an entire month on HOA during his review — and still faced a question he couldn’t answer. The number of staircases in the Ziggurat of Ur. He guessed. He moved on. His point wasn’t that HOA doesn’t matter. It’s that you can’t master it completely, so don’t let it consume what’s left of your time.
Ar. Mikes added a layer that’s worth sitting with: he researched the backgrounds of the incoming board examiners. Not as a shortcut, but as an informed bet. If an examiner’s expertise sits in master planning and socialized housing design, it’s reasonable to expect those areas to carry weight in the questions they write. Green architecture, universal design, and socialized housing — topics he doubled down on — showed up in the exam.
It’s not about gaming the system. It’s about understanding how the exam is built.
The Exam Is Also a Physical Event
This part of the conversation doesn’t usually make it into review discussions. It probably should.
Day one at San Sebastian College ran from morning until roughly 4 p.m. — nearly ten hours in a chair, at a small table, in a cold room. Then the same thing on day two. Ar. Benjamin was specific about what that means for preparation: you cannot show up physically depleted and expect to perform across 450 questions.
He had already adjusted his sleep schedule back to early mornings a week before the exam — not as discipline, but so his body clock matched exam conditions by the time he got there. He packed everything he needed — pencils, calculator, backup calculator, Rule 7 and 8, jacket — days in advance. Not the night before. Days before. Specifically to eliminate that category of stress.
Food, too. His rule: everything you bring should be edible with one hand. The table is small. Plan accordingly.
Ar. Mikes raised something equally practical: Google Street View your exam venue when room assignments come out. Know the route. Know how long it takes. Know how you’re getting home after — because phones may not be permitted inside. These aren’t small things when you’re already running on adrenaline
Logistics unplanned become the things that break your focus precisely when focus matters most.
Give Yourself Grace — And Mean It
The session closed with a direct message to the future architects in the audience.
Ar. Mikes said it plainly: give yourself grace. Not as encouragement, but as instruction. Punishing yourself over gaps in knowledge in the final days doesn’t close those gaps — it compounds the pressure at the worst possible time. “Trust in what you’ve learned,” he said. “Not just what you read during review — but everything you absorbed in school and apprenticeship.”
Ar. Benjamin reframed the whole thing. The board exam is one obstacle in a career that’s already taken a minimum of seven years to reach. It is not the destination. Seen that way, it becomes something you can take on rather than something you have to survive. “This board exam is just one step of many,” he said. “Remember what you’re doing this for.”
The Licensure Examination for Architects is demanding. But it is also, in the end, a fraction of everything these candidates have spent years learning. That fraction does not get to define the whole.
Some insights are better experienced in the room. And this was only part of the conversation.
Closing
What Series 03 surfaced, more than any specific strategy, was a different kind of readiness — one that sits alongside subject knowledge, not underneath it. The week before the LEA is rarely a knowledge crisis. It is, more often, a trust crisis.
The two people best positioned to say that were the ones who had just come out the other side of it.
Topnotch Talks is hosted by Ar. Bernard Berberabe, Founder of VIZCODE — built to make architecture learning clearer, faster, and actually usable for LEA candidates.
— VIZCODE Team
