So a few years ago, my oldest went through the classic, 5-evening course. It was ok. Little brother just finished up the course that is online/home study for the first portion, then one Saturday in a classroom setting with the final test and shooting portion included. One day! When you're juggling multiple kids and all the extracurriculars, it way much easier to find time for this setup. I'd say most kids 10 or older could handle the online stuff just fine, possibly even younger depending on the kiddo.

except they get less out of it. I discourage every newbie from taking it. Kids from hunting and fishing families might be a different story. Less time for questions and hypotheticals, ethics, shoot-don't shoot or hands on stuff.

I agree with someone going in cold, the more face time the better. But this day and age getting a middle schooler to have 5 weeknights in a row with nothing going on is a near impossibility. After getting partway through two other courses only to have to bail for conflicts, this one was definitely the way to go. The full Saturday FTF course and shoot was still pretty good and thorough. A couple of those evening courses (I sat through all of them with each of my kids) were pretty weak.

We do ours in 4 evenings spread over 2 weeks, and we do it every month through the summer. If someone has to miss a class, they just attend the class they missed the following month. Not a trivial time committment, for sure.