(6): CAT-a-LOG: All about CAT, IIMs and Coaching.
Article(6): CAT-a-Log: Why not to join a Coaching Institute?
(Posted on 5/9/2023, Teachers Day.)
(Click here for the next or previous articles:
You already know about the positive points of Coaching Institutes. Unfortunately, for every one positive points, there are more than two negative points against Coaching Institutes. Please read the below mentioned points carefully before making the decision to join Coaching Classes anywhere.
These are the facts which no Coaching Institute will ever tell you at the time of joining, during the course or after the completion of the course.
(1) The first point you should remember is that for any Coaching Institute; Student means Customer, Counsellor means Sales Girl and Counselling means Selling of dreams. The earlier you know this fact, better for your CAT preparation.
(2) As a Masterjee teaches all students -First grade to Fifth grade- under the shadow of a Banyan tree in a small village school; Faculty of Coaching Institutes also teach a large number of students of different ages (18 to 27), different years ( First to final year and working executives), different degrees( BBA, BCom, BE, BSc,BCA etc) in the same Class-Room at the same time!
Dear Parents, what learning can you expect for your children if they happen to be in such a routine class? Will you except such a situation in regular schools?
(3) All Coaching Institutes, without exception, create hype about selection of 50 to 100 odd students in Top B Schools out of total 2000 students enrolled. But they will never tell you about the remaining majority of 1950 or 1900 students who all end up only contributing to the ever expanding profits of the Coaching Institutes.
They will display on large advertising boards in the prominent roads of a city mentioning about 1200 or so selections by the students of the Coaching Institute. Please be informed that these selections are just number of Interview calls secured by approximately roughly 100 students. Out of these 100 students only a handful of students will be finally able to go to IIMs.
Nobody can be sure about the career of the silent majority of more than 90% who fail to go to a better B School.
(4) Here comes the issue of mental health also. A large number of such 90% students left behind get depressed because of high and unreasonable expectations of Parents and the unreal hype created by the Coaching Institutes. Parents start dreaming more than their wards due to the rosy picture conjured up by the Coaching Institutes.
I have come accross a large number of such students who are suffering or have suffered from depression due to this mismatch of dreams and reality. (Would highlight this problem in detail in separate Article no.8 onwards, in the next two weeks.)
(5) The Coaching Institutes will never reveal the Categories (General/SC/ST/OBC/EWS/PH etc) and percentiles of the selected Candidates. Parents of prospective students of General Category get impressed by the shown total numbers of students selected without knowing the actual number of selection for General Category, which happens to be far less!
No coaching Institute for CAT is transparent in reporting the percentiles of candidates vis-a-vis their Categories as they don't have any regulatory government authority to control them.
You may ask them during 'Counselling' to provide details in Excel Sheet like name, age, qualification, Category, Percentile of finally selected candidates for the IIMs, not the mere interview call getters, and other B Schools.
They will certainly not provide as it will contradict their hyped advertisements and Promotions. But still try. You will come to know about the ill-intentions of the Coaching Institutes immediately.
(6) A fact which is very well known to even the public is that the Coaching Institutes Puchase succesful candidates and unethically show them as their regular students. And then they create hype showing their photos, their percentile and their comments about the Coaching Institutes.
Same successful students appear in the ads of different Coaching Institutes. Obviously such students are purchased shamelessly and with impunity in the absence of a Regulatory body for Coaching Institutes.
Students are attracted to the Coaching Institutes due to this hype and false hopes are generated through these misleading advertisements.
The prospective students visit coaching Institutes after seeing the photos of successful candidates in News Papers and meet the so-called Counselors (Sales Girls) of the Coaching Institutes for 15 to 30 minutes and decide to be trained for CAT.
They all are made to believe by all Coaching Institutes that they will 'clear' CAT after making some efforts in a few months under the able guidance of Faculty team.
Poor gullible students are not aware about themselves and the Coaching Institutes. They get trapped, pay heavily and learn a lesson at a very high cost.
(7) The coaching Institutes, like any other Corporate, are not Charitable Organizations.They are there to make money first and then Careers of others. Nothing wrong in that...
But, all Coaching Institute Owners/ Directors having gone through the rigour of CAT preparation; know that more than 60% students enrolled are not fit to be trained for CAT that too in such a hot haste.
In certain batches almost 90% Students are not fit to be trained for CAT. Still such students are also allured, year after year, to join Coaching Institutes for CAT just to make money. This is somewhat unethical. Almost a scam. But we are a scam-proof society. It does not bother anyone including the victims!
For Coaching Institutions all and sundry are fit to be trained for CAT, one of the toughest exams of the Country. I have repeatedly seen students coming from humble background , from Hindi Medium, from far off villages who can't even pass VIII standard Maths and who can't even comprehand usual English sentences written in a news paper. Just to remind, CAT expects students to be extremely good in English Language. CAT is conducted only in English.
Some of them happen to be very poor and take loan even for coaching classes. Such students are obviously not fit to be trained in 3 or 6 or 12 months but are wholeheartedly enrolled for CAT Coaching by the learned owners, generally IIM graduates, of the Coaching Institutes . Such is the unsatiated greed of Coaching Institute Owners/Directors. Sad!
(8) Whatever may be the efforts from a Coaching Institute, the end result will be the same: 98% of the applicants are going to be rejected by the IIMs.
They will not remind the students that CAT is not that simple an examination. Only about 5000 students out of 250000 students will get Admissions into IIMs.It means only 2 out of 100 aspirants will be selected finally.
(9) The ratio of CAT Students to CMAT students in Coaching Institutes is about 10:1. The average fees collected for CAT is approximately Rs. 50000 but fees collected for CMAT is approximately Rs. 15000.
More than 70% Students enrolled for CAT training, go to the various B/C grade B Schools where they could have gone directly without appearing for the CAT or after appearing in CMAT.
CMAT is more relevant exam for most of the students but students (Customers for Coaching Institutes) are pursuaded to join CAT coaching classes for the obvious reasons.
(10) CAT takes place in November of every year. Students from all backgrounds are enrolled till August/September even when most of them are about to appear in CAT for the first time.
All Directors/Owners of the Coaching Institutes know in advance that there is no possibility of selection of such hapless students who would be preparing for CAT for only two-three months that too for the first time.
(11) The 'Counselors' are actually Sales Girls having Salary of 10000 to 20000 pm with little or no CAT experience. They are the most efficient, charming, capable, efficient girls who can be an asset to any Organization. They are trained successfully to 'counsel' all the students to join only CAT Coaching Classes. As explained earlier, 'Counselling' means Selling of dreams for a Coaching Institute.
Almost all the students are 'counselled' by these Sales Girls. The students never go for professional paid Counselling; such is the hype for MBA/CAT/IIM/Coaching Institutes. In fact many of them are happy to be counselled by these so-called 'Counselors'!
I have not seen even single male Counselor in 16 years in the Coaching Institutes where I have been a Faculty! You know the reason very well!
(12) The ratio of Students to Faculty is heavily skewed towards the profits of owners of the Coaching Institutes and not towards the betterment of Students. Roughly, for 2000 students, there are around only 10 to 15 Faculty members in three Areas ( Quantitative Aptitude, Data Interpretation/Logical Reasoning, English Language) in a Coaching Institute for CAT. It means for a particular area, for example Language, there may be only 3 to 4 Faculty members for 2000 students!
And these Coaching Institutes crib about the Indian Education System of Schools to project thier products!
(13) Trends have changed for worse in the past few years about teaching styles. Many of the Coaching Institutes now have excellent Stand-up Comedians in the garb of Faculty.They create 'magical' moments in their classes and manage to keep their students delighted.
Selection to a good institute is not relevant to most students. Many of them want entertainment primarily and they get it in abundance.
(14) It is no longer Student-Teacher Relationship in the Coaching Industry, in general. It is like Salesman-Customer Relationship, barring a few very good exceptions. Students have to be pleased rather than properly tutored. And some Coaching Institutes do it perfectly well.
As the emphasis by the Institutes is on keeping the students happy; Faculty members of some Coaching Institutes prefer to teach simple questions of CMAT level in CAT classes rather than actual tough CAT level questions. Though fee is charged for CAT!
If a Faculty tries to teach a difficult CAT level concept; the Faculty is branded as an 'out-dated' faculty and some students complain of getting demotivated! Some of the students go there for entertainment and not for learning. Harsh reality!
(15) All CAT coaching institutes take full fees in the first month itself for the whole course whose duration varies from three months to twenty four months. No Coaching Institute accepts monthly fees in their bid to receive the entire amount much before students decide to leave the course midway.
Approximately half of the students understandably leave coaching classes within two to three months of joining after realising the huge difference between their maximum potential and minimum CAT level.
Their earlier leaving makes the Directors/Owners of Coaching Institutes very happy and free to train the remaining better students. There is no provision of refunding the amount in case a student leaves earlier.
If half of the students do not leave in between, it will be impossible for the Coaching Institutes to arrange for the Faculty and Class Rooms. The more they leave, happier are the Coaching Institutes because they collect money for the full course in advance! Requests for refund are not entertained by any Coaching Institute.
(16) Coaching Institutes inform prospective students that not more than 30 students will be taken in a batch. However they start merging the batches, as the exodus of students starts midway. Many batches have the batch size between 60 to 120. And at the time of revision of the course the figure may even cross 150 in certain Institutes!
(17) Coaching Institutes will never make efforts to make a student independent. If they are made independent, they will not come for the second or even third attempt!
They will never tell a student to become a Self-Mentor. Many Coaching Institutes assign 150 to 200 students to one Faculty. No Faculty can ever mentor 150 students for CAT after taking 2 to 3 classes of 2 hours each everyday.
(18) Certain Coaching Institutes encourage and help students to go for false certificates for the EWS Category. For them honesty is not the best policy.
Similarly, they provide false experience certificates of working in their Institutes also to the student who take a drop of one or two years for CAT preparation.
In fact, the Coaching Institutes have almost legitimised taking drop from academics/work to prepare for CAT. Very unfortunately students are encouraged to take break from Studies and jobs.
Such breaks are not liked by the interviewers.
It is extremely difficult to justify such breaks in the Interviews. Such mindless breaks from work remain an eyesore on Resume which students fail to realise because of Coaching Institutes false assurances to take drop.
(19) The facilities provided by a few Coaching Institutes are inadequate. For example students are not allowed to use lift by some Building Owners/Coaching Institutes. Poor students have to climb 4 or 5 floors daily. In many cases, condition of the toilets is horrible to say the least. Some Institutes even fail to provide adequate parking space. Most surprisingly students and their Parents don't even complain despite paying the full fees in advance!*
(20) All students are encouraged to read the same set of Fiction/Non-Fiction during the preparation for CAT. Even reading habit is standardised! They are made to think, behave, prepare in the same way, killing their individuality to a great extent.
During Group Discussion/Personal Interview stage, Coaching Institutes prepare a lot of clones by training the students to reply in a predetermined standard way.
Such students who are mostly droppers are not liked by the Interview panels of IIMs and other Top B Schools. That is why a large number of Students of the Coaching Institutes are rejected during the GD/PI stage.
(21) Coaching Institutes have thousands of Students but only a handful of Faculty Members with little or no Corporate experience.
A very few of Faculty Members of the Coaching Institutes are capable Mentors though they all are definitely very competent in their Subject Areas.
Harsh reality is that CAT Aspirants are generally mentored by only Sales Girls at the time of joining. After that there is no 'one to one' or continuous counseling.
(22) After the CAT is over, students' details including phone numbers are unethically supplied to C grade Business Schools. These Business Schools take the students in bulk without bothering about the CAT score. They also take students who do not appear in CAT.
Students consider themselves as 'Students' without realising that they are just a Customer: first for Coaching Institutes and then for a 'C' Grade B School.
Now you know a few facts about the Coaching Institutes. Click here for the next Article No.7 for the important decision : How to select a Coaching Institute?; if you really want to join a Coaching Institute even after reading the above points.
Pankaj Khanna
Indore (9424810575)
B.E. (Mech.) SGSITS Indore 1983 Batch
-Worked with HPCL from 1984 to 2007.
-Faculty Maths/DI-LR -T.I.M.E. Indore 2007-20
-Faculty Maths/DI-LR-IMS Indore-June22-July23.
-Blogger on diverse subjects.( Love thy Numbers, Epeolatry, CAT-a-LOG, Corruption in Oil Companies, Tawa Sangeet, Ikshak Indori and a few more.)
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List of Articles of the blog CAT-a-LOG:
Section A: The articles written in this section are about basics of Self-Mentoring, MBA, CAT and perils of Parallel Education System (Coaching Institutes). Everyone concerned about Coaching Classes including the Parents and Students are requested to kindly go through following Articles in this Section before joining any Coaching Institute for CAT.
Section B : This section is all about Mental Health of CAT aspirants. The darker side of CAT Preparation nobody discusses. These articles should also be read by Everyone including Parents and Students.
Section C: It is about detailed CAT Preparation Plans for Students. Parents may also Read:)
Section D: Open letters to various Agencies to think about mental health of majority of CAT Aspirants (90%).
(23) Parents of CAT Aspirants.
(24) An open letter to Directors of IIMs.
(25) An Open Letter to Concerned Ministries to have Regulatory Body over Coaching Institutes.
Section E: It is about about CAT material. Will start loading it with effect from November last week.