Pointers about the Right Study material and Teacher selection THE Detail IS WRITTEN TO BRING TO SURFACE THE FACTS WHICH IF IGNORED CAN HURT A STUDENT BIG TIME. SOME HARD FACTS ABOUT WHAT ALL GOES WRONG IN THE TEACHING WORLD MAY MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE AND MAY NOT BE POLITICALLY CORRECT SO AS TO SPEAK BUT WE HAVE TO FACE IT AS IT IS A FACT. SOME POINTS MAY LOOK REPEATED BUT IF YOU WILL CLOSELY READ YOU WILL REALISE THAT DIFFERENT ASPECTS ARE DISCUSSED. NEVER IGNORE THE FOLLOWING POINTS: THE PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF TRAINING, SELECTION OF RIGHT MATERIAL,GUIDANCE,TEACHERS, APPROACH ETC.: Give/Given GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT exam, Score in the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT- Wrong English Take/Taken GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT exam and Score on the GMAT/GRE/SAT/GRE - Correct English. Personalised one on one training – Wrong English. Personalized one to one training- Correct English. You provide training to somebody and not on some body. Some teachers puts in fake references of Top Education or General News papers quoting the news paper as saying the concerned GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training center is the best in Mumbai. Such teachers flip the words of the name of the news paper and write the fake promotional testimonial quoting the flipped name of the news paper. The same teachers also go on to the extent that they refer to pseudo and inexistent/never written articles, in big popular Newspapers (articles which were never written), and claim that those articles portrayed that these teachers are the “most authentic” teachers for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT in Mumbai. And that article said that apart from that teacher there is a dearth of teachers. When any student reads it he/she feels that such big education news papers are promoting such people. The reality is education news papers don’t promote anybody. Remember the newspaper only puts adds of coaching classes but no newspaper ever promotes any coaching class ever proclaiming that those coaching classes are the best. The print media is neutral. You can try to search for real new paper articles that have come about the misdeeds of such teachers on Google and you would be shocked to know their reality. Some teachers take up the assignment for the entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and are popular for teaching for entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT but teach only math and leave the English section to someone who knows nothing about the exam and has never written the exam to know about it. Such teachers promote themselves as teaching for the entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT but rather only teach GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT math and ignore the English. Remember math comprises of only 1/2 of it and English comprises of 1/2 of it. GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT math is normal seventh or eighth standard math, which is not tough to handle for the teacher or the student, and as Indians you are supposed to be good at it anyways. But it is the English, which will make a difference, to your score and selection. Always value both the sections equally. Parents and students fall for such math teachers as they have heard the name of so and so teacher for Math and takes for granted that the english teacher teaching along with the math teacher will also be good but the reality is that any one who is not even a graduate can teach for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT math rather it is the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT English which requires skills. Ironical to see parents and students ignoring the reality. If you opt for the same teacher for the entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT then you can ask any doubt of English or math anywhere in any class and also the same teacher supervises the entire progress and there is no mismatch in terms of the progress. Some of these teachers puts in fake photographs of models posing as students and make them write fake superlative testimonials about the coaching class. Some of these teachers are not even graduates rather they have failed in their BCom. Some teachers put in fake references of fake students representing fake high scores of those students, and post that these teachers claim that these students have got these scores after taking training from them. Fake email ids are mentioned and also some fake numbers are mentioned to impress the students. The startling fact is that if any numbers are mentioned they are either of friends or of some other fake people. Student calls up on those numbers and feels satisfied and gets brainwashed. The student ignores what is there in front and trusts what is there behind their back. Some of these references giving teachers even go on to explicitly write names of other coaching institutions and falsely accusing that the fake student took training at so and so center and then came to this teacher and got the marks. They openly write the name and such actions are illegal. These teachers write the names of other coaching classes openly to show as if every student going to such teachers gets a successful score. Many students from one coaching center keep shifting from one to other looking for good training but no one openly writes that so and so student went to so and so coaching center in the past openly. Are such particular teachers, who write the names of the other coaching classes openly do so, trying to say that no student from his/her coaching class joins any other coaching class after learning from him/her?... is his track record 100%?.... how true can that be… do ponder. Such teachers puts the same name of the same student in the list of GMAT as well as as GRE as well as SAT categories. How can any student appear for all the exams and take training with the same teacher for all the exams and also how can the fake reference students have joined the same coaching institution previously for all the above exams as the claims of such coaching institutions. Whats even worse is that such teachers puts these fake references as being taught by multiple names of coaching institutions before joining the particular teacher. Ridiculously the names of these multiple coaching institutions mentioned against the names of these fake references keep on changing regularly on the website of these teachers. Some of the teachers even falsely write the names of the successful students of other classes and try to take the credit in their name by saying that the particular student mentioned took training previously from somewhere else (the place from where he/she actually scored well) and then falsely writing that so and so student took training from the teacher who is writing the fake names on his/her website. The reality is that such students have never come to the coaching class who claims them to be their own student on the website. Some teachers insist a lot on references of past students and students who are enquiring do get trapped in that. With some of these teachers the so called past students do call the new enquiring students on their own and even before the new students have enrolled to impress the new enquiry students. Just ponder, why would any old student call you even before you have enrolled to speak about the value of the teacher and his training, that too when you don’t know him or her? The reality is that as a student you don’t even know whether the student you are talking to in the name of references are genuine or not. Most of the times these so called references whom you speak to are friends or buddies who help these teachers. The reality is when you will ask them their scores and scaled scores on the individual sections then they wouldn’t be able to answer correctly or what answer they give when you will cross check you will find it false. Furthermore just think that when past students take the test, they move on with their studies and career and life then why would any past student have the time and interest to make such first calls from his/her side to new enquiring students of the teacher. Who has the time and interest?.. unless such so called students are a part of the coaching of the teacher as fake students.. … Why would any teacher become so desperate?.. why any teacher will go to that extent to convince a student?.... the reason being that the teachers who do so are not convinced about his or her own ability and needs to convince the new students in the name of past students.. The genuinity of the past students is unclear, their understanding is unclear and more than anything IT IS NOT THE PAST ABILITY OF THE TEACHER THAT MATTERS RATHER IT IS THE PRESENT ABILITY OF THE TEACHER THAT MATTERS. WHY WOULD ANY GOOD TEACHER NEED A SUPPORTING CRUTCH (A REFERENCE CHECK OR A TESTIMONIAL) OF A PAST STUDENT’S REFERENCES, WHY WOULDN’T HE OR SHE GET THE STUDENT ON THEIR ABILITY? WHY THE TEACHER HAS TO BECOME SO COMMERCIAL AND STOOP to this extent? Don’t you think THAT THE STUDENTS NEED TO BE A LOT MORE VIGILANT AND ALERT AND UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION AND HANDLE THEIR CAREERS WELL? Some of these one subject teaching teachers boast of posh setups or classes. But the reality is that the setups belong to some agent consultant and these one subject teaching teachers just use it to organize classes there but the student gets impressed with the set up thinking this belongs to the teacher. Some teachers claim to have done their MBA (or to be a pass out) from IIM or some prestigious B-school abroad and then they teach with some established names. Some these so called IIM graduates have started coaching classes in the past and post students understood that they don’t know anything then these so called IIM graduate teachers joined some big coaching class to hide the name. But ironical how such big coaching classes take such teachers. Some also claim to have got through for their MBA from top B-schools abroad. Just for a minute stop and ponder after doing an MBA from IIM or after getting through an MBA to the top b-schools abroad (which you an I crave for) why would someone get into teaching GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT at a miniscule level rather after our MBAs we all want to be business leaders and grow and move ahead in life (Even if anybody who has passed out of IIM would want to start an entrepreneur venture of GMAT training classes, then he/she would start at a much bigger level as there would be many people lining up to finance such a project and would promote it big time and have a very systematic and professional approach). You can also minutely observe the diction, language, pronunciation, style of speech, choice of words etc. of such teachers and judge for yourself the IIM quality. IIM class is class apart. Beware of such false claims from teachers that they are educated at IIMs or Top B-schools. Try and understand some logical statistical manipulation done by some teachers. In a batch, some of the teachers take around 20-40 students. Now it is very evident that 1 or 2 students will be brilliant in such a big batch and they will get a 95+ percentile score. Such students are naturally brilliant and they would get such a score be it with or without the teachers help, so sitting in such a big batch won’t really matter to them. But when these brilliant students score a good score the teachers put their names on their website and try to reflect that these students have achieved such a score only due to the teacher. What the teacher simply hides from the student and the student simply ignores is that out of 40 students 2 students would be anyways brilliant and get a 95+percentile but the remaining 38 are the ones who don’t get a good score and are lost for ever. The teacher acts very sweet with them post their debacle and teacher never tells the student that what is it that the student needs to do get a good score. The teacher can’t get the score for you but the real teachers are the ones who can tell you what is wrong on your face . As students , please don’t get fooled by the good scores of 2 or 3 students of a big batch rather think that those students are different and you are different. The teacher’s input is just 2% and that too as a catalyst taking the reaction forward. The main component of the reaction is the student’s hard work that comprises of the remaining 98%. Look for the quality of input and also that whether the teacher can tell you clearly what is wrong with your preparation and also whether the teacher has himself prepared in the past to really know what it takes to prepare for such exams. The real guidance from teachers help you but students go on the past records of past few students ignoring that individuals are different. Ironically students gets impressed that in the demo or the actual class of a teacher a big crowd of 20-40 students come thereby the students feel that the teacher is really good at teaching and is hugely popular. But what we as students ignore that such a big crowd can be due to the good marketing abilities of the teacher . Also we ignore the lack of personal attention in such a big crowd. As students when we hear from a friend/colleague that so and so teacher/coaching class is there for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and be it even if the teacher just teaches for one half of GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT or may not be even a graduate, we assume that so and so teacher is good. We never think that just by hearsay or word of mouth we shouldn’t judge someone and blindly join. Ironically students don’t even judge or value that whether the teacher himself is educated enough or not. Some teachers also write names of top counselors, who are credible and established in the field, on their website to impress the students. These teachers claim that such counselors recommend the concerned teacher for training and that they have a tie up. The reality is that such top counselors never recommend the proclaiming teacher and also have no tie up for the same with them. Some teachers claim to put 100s of free online tests on their website where as the reality is that these teachers illegally steal material from other websites or connect their website to foreign coaching classes website or other websites and claim their material to be theirs. The reality is that those questions belong to the coaching center/teacher to whom this website is getting connected to. Not only it is illegal and immoral but also it is fooling the student. The student can see the website names or read the copyright claim at the bottom of the screen to see the reality. Remember the material from Indian websites/foreign websites are there anyways on the net and are available to you. It has nothing to do with the expertise of the teacher who puts it on his/her website, as these teachers have not designed those questions. The student feels impressed with so many questions being available to them on the website of the teacher and equates it to the teaching ability of the teacher. Solve only foreign material and the material disclosed by GMAC officially for the closest feel of the exam. We give the latest material officially disclosed by the GMAC. The material designed the Indian way can seldom be the real exam as GMAT is evolving from time to time and either people who have worked with GMAC or who have written the test can tell you what the exam is all about. The foreign publications follow this policy. Sorry to bring about but such teachers are also facing lawsuits by those coaching classes and websites whose questions and content such teachers are using illegally. Some of the teachers call the students in high end coffee shops and meet them there for the first time. In the coffee shop the teacher orders for everything exorbitantly and then when it is the time to pay the bill the teacher excuses and leaves giving an excuse of an urgent meeting. Its embarrassing to say but such teachers make the student pay the exorbitant bill of the coffee shop. No true professional teacher would meet you in coffee shops and make you pay the bill. Some big Indian brand names of coaching classes who have many centers in many cities in India and in the middle-east have only motto that is too churn out batch after batch and meet a target per month. The teachers teaching at these coaching institutes have never appeared for the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and this is proved by checking out the job vacancies listed on the websites of these coaching institutes. You can see for yourself that the eligibility criteria to teach for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and become a faculty with these brand names is just a mere graduation and 0-5 years of work experience in teaching signifying that even fresh graduates who are straight out of college are also teaching with them or people who have taught for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT in the past after reading some books or instructor manuals but never have taken the exam to know the real ground reality abcd of it. They also employ teachers who have been teaching for English and math for school and hand them instructors manual for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and make them teach you GMAT/GRE/ACT/SAT. But just think taking the GMAT/GRE and having a 99+ percentile is not even a criteria to teach for these brand names in India for the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT leave aside being a mandatory criteria. These coaching institutes claim to have the highest number of 700+ scorer students in India on the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT, a claim no one can ever verify and students will be continuously taken for a ride in the name of these past claims. Just imagine how badly your careers are being played with. Brand name/franchisee be it of Indian or foreign origin - NEVER TEACHES - people working with brands do. Some of these foreign brand names are nothing but franchisee owners and have opened centers in India and other countries in the name of Foreign coaching class whose franchisee they own. These franchisee coaching classes also just aim to churn batch after batch and meet targets per month. They also employ mere graduates who are just out of college or who have been teaching for school or college for math or English subjects. Such coaching classes hands over an instructors manual to these math and English school teachers and ask them to teach for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT. Neither these coaching classes have any teachers nor do they want to employ teachers who have written the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT or got a 99+ percentile score on it. Such teachers don’t know abcd of GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT but these franchisee classes claim these teachers are internationally trained at their international centers. There is a massive difference between the standards of franchisee of foreign coaching centers and the actual coaching centers located abroad. So concentrate on the ability of the people, whether they have written GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT or not and what score have they got. People with one brand in India may have been with some other brand in the past changing the brand doesn’t mean change of ability. Also Indian/foreign coaching center brands recommend only the books/material published by their publication, where as solving just one publication’s books isn’t enough. Eg: these brand names would recommend only their book for every topic of GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT but the fact is every book is not sufficient for every topic. If for Critical reasoning/reading one book of a particular publication is the best but that doesn’t mean that for sentence correction the book of the same publication is the best, the reality is that some other book is the best. But these big brand name classes would teach sentence correction also from their own publication books, where in the book of some other publication is the best for sentence correction. This is bound to hurt your preparation and score. The fact is that no book/publication is complete, wherein you can just read books of one particular publication and go for your exam. You have to read different books for different topics. So just ask yourself that whether learning from one book for every topic is going to help you? Or your resources should vary and accordingly selecting the resource which is good for every particular topic? Many consultants cum franchisees (as well as some other teachers) put a list of students trained by them getting more than 700 on the GMAT on their website. They know that no one can ever crosscheck the reality behind the list. The student gets impressed with the names on the website. REMEMBER JUST CHECK ANY ORIGINAL WEBSITE OF THESE FAMOUS INTERNATIONAL BRAND COACHING CLASSES AND YOU WOULDN’T FIND ANY PAST STUDENT’S NAME OR SCORE MENTIONED THERE. Have you ever thought why? In India when any students tops in an Indian based competitive exam, then many coaching classes claim to have trained that topper student for that exam. How can that be true?? The student sometimes opts for the coaching class, which pays him the most for sponsoring their name. Every coaching class publishes the name and the photo and the score of that same student. They all publish a list of student toppers and 95+percentile score holders. How truthful is that can you ever check??? Remember in U.S no such thing of publishing a list of toppers or names or scores or past student references is there. Because there if anyone gives a list, and if any name or score is fake then the student can sue the coaching class. Try going to these international centers of these big coaching classes in U.S and ask for student references!!!! The response will make you realize the difference between the approaches here and there. They don’t believe in winning the student with past references, they believe in their work speak for themselves. Also revealing other students personal details is an infringement of privacy of others. Here no such rules so students are taken for a ride on the name of references. Ironically even the students and the guardians in our country don’t care for the priority differential factors and don’t understand the value of ‘value’. The rules are very strict there. They know how to be honest to their work and maintain quality standards. It is not that all the scores or references put up are wrong on these websites. Some are true as well. But just stop and ponder of all the students taught by a particular class or teacher what is the percentage success rate. As most of these famous classes and teachers teach big batches and in a big batch of 15-30 students, how many students are getting a good score. More so these classes and teachers teach many batches at one time so some students are bound to do well. But also look at who and how many don’t do well. Teachers who aren’t specialists of GMAT/GRE but teach CAT/MAT/CETUPSC/SSC/IB/LSAT/HSC/MCA/BCA etc as well. All these exams are different Some teachers who teach only one part of the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT be it Math or English claim that they have appeared for only one part of GMAT. Well that can’t be true. They fumble when you ask them about their GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT score. They take time to think to manipulate what to tell you. They say they haven’t got a score on the entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT as they solved questions of only one section. Please note you appear for the entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and get the score for the entire GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and scaled score for individual sections. Such teachers neither tell you their total score on the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT nor their scaled score in the individual section (whichever section they teach). Also for practice they take any mock test for GMAT/GRE/SAT and compare that to the real GMAT/GRE/SAT and then they tell the students they have taken the test. The scores that they get after writing one section of the mock GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and they on their own convert it to some score in the individual sections on the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT. Remember for the individual sections on the real GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT you get a scaled score. If you ask these teachers that when they took the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT they would say that they appear for the test every 6 months and if you ask them last when they did so they would say some time back, they wouldn’t remember when they took the test, leave aside the date. If you would ask these teachers that does the same teacher teach for both the subjects, they would out rightly call it impossible and not required. These teachers would claim that they are specialist at one subject and don’t need to teach both. In U.S they promote ‘the same teacher for both subjects’ also for the reason that on the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT there is by no way you can get individual abilities assessment on only for Math or English. By no means any one can judge that whether you saw the questions of the highest level otherwise and got them right. With a 750+ score you are ensured that you have done excellently well on both sections. With us the same teacher teaches for both Math and English. Some teachers claim that they have come from U.S and U.K and now teach for the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT in India. Just think that if these teachers are good at GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training and have come from U.S/U.K, then why don’t they teach in U.S and U.K for it, as they would have earned much more in the U.S and U.K as the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training costs are much more there. The reality is they have not been even teaching GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT in U.S or U.K they have just taught some language courses in U.K or U.S and then started teaching GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT by default in U.K/U.S (just because someone advised them to do so) and then in India too. They do not have any idea about the real exam or any systematic training method. Also such teachers try to exploit the typical Indian mindset wherein Indians get overawed by someone (in this case teachers), who has come from abroad. Just think is it so that just because a teacher has lived in U.K /U.S or come from there or learned/taught anything but not the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and has taught language courses, does that make him/her better than a teacher who has learned and taken the exam in India??? Some teachers are merely B.Com/B.A and run GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT classes in their ‘name’ as a ‘brand name.’ The reality is that these teachers don’t even teach themselves; they hire any one as a teacher. These big names just give you a small introductory session and handover the rest to others. These teachers have tie-ups with consultants. Some teachers claim to have many years teaching/nonteaching work experience in the U.S, having taught/teaching at international b-schools, associations with many b-schools in the world, trained by the world’s best teachers for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT at the world’s best coaching institutes, heading various subject departments at schools/colleges (however name of the school or college, whose departments they are heading is never disclosed by them)… Just stop, ponder and wonder …… If you have such big associations or teaching experiences why would you teach GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT at a miniscule level??? If you are trained by the world’s best teachers, shouldn’t you be at the worlds best coaching institutes??? At the end if you would ask these teachers have they taken the real GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT exam, they would say they have taken mock tests or/and they practice the tests with students and give some other vague answers. More importantly, instantly they would try to change the topic by giving you vague references and examples of students who have done well just because these teachers have taught them. Thereby they try to prove that taking the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT is not at all important to teach for it. Is it so think for a minute??? Some teachers claim that big MNCs,Corporate houses,Universities,Schools,Colleges,Foreign nationals etc. recommend them personally for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT. Just for moment again think do these MNCs, Corporate houses have no other work than recommending people for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT??? You may have heard from some teachers that GMAT is made of 400 marks of Math and 400 marks of English. It is utterly false. You get a scaled score in the range of 9-51 on each section and the sum of the scaled scores is converted into the total score. Eg: If the sum of the two-scaled scores is equal to 84, then that corresponds to a 700 on the GMAT. It is not that Math/English score is given out of 400 each. Such teachers do not even know the full form of the AWA (the essay section) Now it is up to you to judge the truthfulness of such teachers. Pay attention to the grammar/pronunciation/communication/website of the teacher Some teachers give the same material for CAT/CET/GMAT/GRE as the special course material provided by the classes. The classes claim that they specially design the material and the same material works for all these exams. These self proclaimed-self designed materials are nothing but a lift up or copy of the foreign material and printed again. Remember all these exams are different. Some Indian brand names publish/give the GMAT /GRE/SAT students the GMAT/GRE/SAT material, which they have printed themselves. Some of them are also into CAT training and they provide their CAT material for CAT students. But Remember the GMAT/GRE/SAT material provided by some of these Indian brand names have a CAT flavor as the same team designs the CAT and GMAT/GRE/SAT questions. (Incidentally not only a lot of questions are same between the two materials but also the GMAT/GRE/SAT questions are made with a CAT perspective, as abroad it is only GMAT/GRE/SAT and people are specialists and here it is the mix of all Indian MBA exams such as CAT, NMAT, XAT and GMAT). GMAT is an American exam and CAT is an Indian exam. The content pattern and the fine ways by which each exam looks forward to test the student are different. Solving GMAT/GRE/SAT questions made like the Indian IIM CAT way is not going to help.Please note the exam content and level and pattern is different for each of these exams be it GMAT/GRE/SAT/CAT/CET etc. Think how irrelevant would solving GMAT/GRE/SAT material made like the Indian CAT way be for the GMAT/GRE/SAT??! Please solve only foreign books and material that are written by specialists (who have taken GMAT/GRE and have got 99+ or who have worked with the GMAC/ETS/College Board the organizing body of GMAT/GRE/SAT and has experience in designing the real questions of GMAT) working with foreign publications in the U.S. Some teachers teach questions and topics which are out of scope and much tougher than what comes on the GMAT/GRE/SAT. Solving any irrelevant stuff doesn’t help; solve what comes on the GMAT/GRE/SAT. “Where a needle is needed use the needle, using the sword won’t help.” Some teachers don’t help you till the time you write the exam; after the course is over they never keep in touch for your doubts. We help you till the time you write the exam. Some big names (probably neither written GMAT/GRE/SAT) - teach none/one subject - hire someone (probably neither written GMAT/GRE/SAT) of any quality, to teach the other half - English or Math. In U.S one teacher teaches both. The skills and mindset are interrelated, therefore the same person who teaches you Math needs to teach English as well and to monitor your progress. It is only then that they can find the possible loopholes and pits you can fall in and how to have the synergy of right attitude and strategy and temperament for success on the exam. In U.S.A. teachers teaching GMAT/GRE/SAT are called as general ‘GMAT/GRE/SAT instructors’ and not as specific ‘Math faculty’ or ‘English faculty’ as they are called in India. The reason behind is that as the same teacher teaches for both math and English in the U.S. (when you get more than 750 on the GMAT you get more than 99 percentile on English and Math both. As you can get a 750+ score only if you get 99+ percentile on both. In U.S when you are good at both then only you are allowed to teach) as the student can ask any Math or English question to any instructor. In India even in the big brand name franchisee classes this standard is not followed and there are separate faculties who have just read some books and teach separately. Some classes say that out of the total number of classes 50% will be for English and the remaining 50% for math, where as it should be 100% for GMAT/GRE/SAT and not a specific time percentage. Even in the U.S it is 100% GMAT/GRE/SAT training and not 50% for each section. As any student can ask any thing be it math or English anytime to any instructor. It should be treated as 100% for GMAT/GRE/SAT training. With some classes, the teachers read the instructors manual, without having much subject knowledge, and then come to the class and they specifically do only what is there in the class sheet for that day rather they just come to read out the sheet. That is not really teaching. They solve the doubts only for the questions that are there in the class sheet for the day, no other doubts are entertained. Most of the teachers don’t motivate you regularly till the time you take the exam nor these teachers even talk about the importance of motivation. Many students also don’t consider it important. Such students start with loads of enthusiasm and interest and sincerity but tend to lose it mid-way because they can’t maintain their interest levels nor do they get enough self motivation or motivation from the teachers. As a result suddenly the task of doing well on the exam looks farfetched, uncertainty takes over the student and the student feels lost and weak in the mind. Thereby the student lowers his hopes of success. Sincere students are bound to get nervous, as nervousness is a sign that you are prepared, but keeping the motivation going holds the key. We understand the importance of motivation and motivate you till the time you take the exam. Some teachers claim to give you infinite number of classes or sessions for your training. As in their words they say ‘as much as you want’. Ask yourself the question are they going to teach you continuously for 5 years???. Beware of such claims. Remember GMAT/GRE/SAT is all about certain skill sets. These skill sets don’t take time for you to learn provided the person teaching them to you knows it himself/herself in real to make you understand it in the stipulated number of classes. Just because someone is giving extra sessions doesn’t mean that you would learn it then. Remember if someone can’t teach you these specific skill sets in one go , he/she can never do so just because he/she is providing extra sessions. As the fact then can be, that they themselves are not sure of what they are teaching and take time to make you understand. GMAT/GRE/SAT training is not some lifetime membership club that you need infinite entries, rather it should be learnt at one go and if the teacher is good he will make you understand in one go as it is not rocket science for you to not understand. WE TEACH EVERYTHING OURSELVES. We don’t hire anyone. We (same teacher) teach both Math and English. Some people are specialist at teaching/training and some are specialist at consultancy/applications. Remember it is always a specialist’s job that is better than generalists job People who do both are not best at either as a specialist channelizes his/her energy on one aspect. People who do consultancy and training both always try to sell some tie up universities to you. Career is all about specialization and not a package. Some students compare the ‘packages’ offered by certain institutes (GMAT/GRE/SAT training+application) and pure GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training without the application and also compare the fees associated with it. Such students feel that the fee for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training + application at these package coaching institutes is equal to only the GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training fee at other coaching institutes. Thereby they mistakenly feel the GMAT/GRE/ACT training quality is the same and they are getting application as a bonus. Well think for yourself, your GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT score depends on the cheaper package you take or the training you take? Some famous classes have branches in many cities and some students join them as their schedule requires flexibility and they have to mange their work and studies and fear that they would miss a few classes at one center and can attend the remaining classes later or in some other center hoping that the training would be same. Remember training depends on who is teaching you and not where. Also rhythm matters a lot and so does being in sync with studies regularly. It has to be understood that coaching institutes/Big Brands who teach mainly for CAT/CET cannot be a specialist of GMAT/GRE/SAT. As it would be like comparing apples and oranges. The difference between a specialist and a generalist would be the refining of the performance in terms of teaching and results. As well as taking the exam matters. There is no similarity between the way CAT/CET tests students and the way GMAT/GRE (computer adaptive format)/SAT does. We teach only for GMAT/GRE/SAT and not for CAT. Some senior citizen teachers claim to have decades of teaching experience just because of their age, where as with them the reality is that they have just gone through few books on their own in their spare time as a past time hobby (as they are either sitting free at home as housewives or have nothing else to do) and done some self preparation collected some material to teach. They thereby teach students for GMAT/GRE/SAT as a hobby cum easy source of income. This ridicules the seriousness and professionalism associated with GMAT/GRE/SAT training and makes fun of the practice that you should take the test to teach for the test. Some teachers organize the trial lecture and in that lecture they just recite official guide questions of various topics and explain them and nothing else. Just think ,even you can go through these official guide questions on your own and learn the explanations by heart and then explain them in the class, what different do they do??? They do not show you what uniqueness they can bring to your training that will help you differently from stereotypes of just reciting official guide questions. Most of these teachers are just focused on talking about the fees with you at the outset. Just think is that all you should look for in a teacher and concentrate about? These teachers will try to prove somehow that they charge very less than others and are very sincere and want to help the students and all this - just by keeping their fees lower than others. Just think are these teachers some philanthropists or saints or social workers doing some social service that they are keeping the fees subsidized? In this world whatever is of good quality will never lower the price just because they want to lure someone or due to some other people are there who give the same things of any quality and charge peanuts for it. They know there are people who value quality. The reality is that many of these ‘extremely low fees’ teachers teaching GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT hardly know anything about the exam and just have read some books for it. The only way they can lure students is by low prices. Keeping the prices low- They call it market competition - the reality is, it is desperation. When you visit a big brand name classes, all that you get to speak to is the receptionist and nothing else. The interaction with the faculty is minimal. There is no guarantee that the faculty in every class will be the same for different topics of Math/English, on top of it the faculty is different for math/English. But with us you get to speak to the faculty directly and there is one faculty for both Math and English. Some classes and agents teach all the students for GMAT and GRE and SAT in the same class by making them sit together and learn together, we do not do so. All these exams are different and have different types and levels of questions. The students taking these exams have to be taught differently and never together. Some classes lure the students by offering 70-100 hours of training program. Wherein some students find it more attractive because of the number of hours, the students ignore the fact that just because the number of hours is more that doesn’t mean that the quality is good. GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training is not rocket science. In fact if you really want to crack the paper then you have to do smart work rather than hard work. To do smart work you don’t need to slog for hours rather you need to learn the quickest way as quickly as possible and apply it the quickest and it doesn’t take long to do so. So judge the training by the quality rather than quantity. Just take an example of a key maker who makes the key to a lock. A real key maker makes the key in minutes and opens the lock. He doesn’t take hours. In the same way it works for the GMAT/GRE/ACT/SAT. Even in U.S all training programs are in the range of 25-30 hours. The number of hours doesn’t matter, learning quickly the right thing does. Some classes present their program as 100 hours program, where they would have classes on a daily basis for two or four months. Remember the reality is that they would teach the basics in a big group or on individual basis in a haphazard way, where there is no clarity on how the classes would be conducted. More so, such classes would teach you the basics for 3-4 (few) lectures and then would count the time of the practice tests (3.5 hours each) you take, random practice for hours that you do by sitting in the center in the entire day or at any time of the day, also into account for the entire 100 hours program. The faculty doesn’t sit with you every minute for the claimed 100 hours, secondly the faculty who needs so much time to make some one understand the GMAT/GRE/SAT concepts and application, signifies that the faculty is not too sure of himself. Think how will he teach to solve the paper quickly, if he can’t simplify the concepts and make the student understand it quickly??? Learn quicker- solve quickest. Remember GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT learning is a sharp razor edge thing, it is not something blunt that can be blindly rubbed in your mind like a daily wage laborer and you be expected to master it just because it is rubbed in on a daily basis. Our training only takes into account the intensive training time that we are going to spend with you and our training teaches you to be the quickest to solve questions. Some of the teachers or classes puts student reviews praising their services. Some of the reviews are genuine as well for sure, but as a student you need to be aware of the fake reviews. Fake reviews can be understood by the fact that some of the reviews talk in too many superlatives about the teacher which sounds too good to be true as well as some of these reviews do not sound as if they are written by a student, these reviews look as if they are written by a teacher as the review talks about the intricate knowledge of the teacher and also has the teacher flavor in terms of language and style. And if you will see the dates of these reviews you would see that they all have been posted on the same or nearby dates and nothing after that. Rest the reviews on the websites which just have a name and no other details of the student, be very wary of them as these classes know that no student can or will ask to cross check these reviews. Remember on the foreign coaching classes websites there is no such system of placing the reviews. So after reading the reviews judge for yourself which reviews are genuine and which are not. Some brand name coaching classes provide few online tests, as a part of the training package, which lures the students. Students assume this to be very attractive and helpful. They rely upon these tests and think of them to be as the benchmark. The reality is that these online tests don’t help you much, you have to solve extensive material from a range of publications in the form of computer adaptive tests and computer based tests to judge your progress. These online tests are available in the market as well along with the test of other publications. You can’t afford to be one eyed. You have to solve a lot more than what is recommended for you to solve by these famous brand names. Remember it is only the GMAT prep test of mba that is going to tell you where you stand actually, whenever. Some of these famous brand name classes, which are also involved in CAT training, during the training just distribute class sheets (which they claim to have designed themselves) which have some questions of few types of a particular topic. These classes claim that the questions in these sheets give the students a complete understanding of all the questions of that topic that come on the GMAT. It is strictly not true. All that the teachers teaching in these classes do is that they solve some of these questions given in that sheet, not even all, and cover a topic thereby. No attention is paid to the basics. Remember it is the basics and the application, how they are learnt that matters the most and is the comprehensive way of learning. Solving some class sheets doesn’t help you at all. Some of these classes give you a sheet and then give you two hours to solve the sheet in the class and then explain the questions and the solutions of the questions in the next two hours. Thereby the class runs for 4 hours. The student gets the impression that he is having a class for 4 hours and is learning for 4 hours. These classes present their training program as a bigger package in terms of the number of hours that they provide for training. The student gets lured and feels that they are going to get more time for themselves. The student tends to compare the time offered by these classes with other classes and feels that the classes who offer training packages with more time for training are better. The reality is far from what they think. Remember the more the time duration the better the training is just a MYTH and a MISLEADING CONCEPTION. We do not give student sheets and thereby do not include the time to solve the sheets in our training program. Our program has a crisp, sharp and comprehensive and transparent look. Some big brand name consultants in India buy the franchisee of foreign classes, where in they sell the ‘brand name’ of the foreign coaching classes in India by their name. The student goes there expecting foreign standards. The reality is far from what it seems. There are Indian teachers who have never taken the exam and are just teaching at meager salaries but these teachers are presented as foreign trained to the students. The main teaching specialty of these consultants is the IELTS (Even their websites displays this). Now, the most important point is that most commission-based universities just need IELTS as a qualifying exam for admission be it U.K or Europe or elsewhere, so when a student gets a very low score on the GMAT after training for the GMAT with them, these consultants sell off their commission based universities to the student. To target such students and increase their target zone they include the training for GMAT in their list of services offered, as then only the student would come to them looking at the big foreign brand name and fall in their trap of commission based university later. These consultants cum big foreign brand franchisee owners give two addresses one as their consultancy and one for coaching centers making the student feel specialized, but the reality is it is the same place. They want that the students who take GMAT and aspire for top colleges should come to them and take training for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT and then after their low scores opt for commission-based colleges. They want to increase their reach from students who evade these competitive exam and just want to land on foreign shores with any college to the student who aspire big. It is these big aspirations people they want to trap and sell of to commission college. The hidden part here is that off late some commission-based universities have started showing GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT score as an essential criteria for admission. But the reality is that a GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT score is nothing but a formality with these commission universities and any GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT score of the student would qualify him for an admission and scholarship.Now you judge for yourself. How can a genuine training center of U.S and an agent based consultancy of India which sells commission based colleges to students can have the same interest? As these agents buy the franchisee just to eyewash the student. So what’s the catch .. think? These franchisee of big brand name classes claim that they provide a separate kit and books for enrolled students which are different from the reference books available in the market. The reality is that the material provided by them and available outside is the same the only difference is that the books are printed and packaged with different names and covers. The questions and techniques inside are the same just jumbled up in different books. If you ask them that have the teachers taken the exam or not then they smartly ignore the question by saying that the teachers are trained internationally by the original owners and instructors of the U.S. But they themselves admit that the teaching design is different (eg: the number of hours given to students in U.S and India are different) and lot many other things are different from the U.S standard. The reality is that most of these teachers are nothing but graduates who have never been trained or who have never taken the exam, but the student feels over awed due to the brand and show. In the name of international approach they present anything as international approach where the reality is no student has attended the international classes to really differentiate. And the teachers in India with these classes are just reading the pre teaching instructors sheet. They provide some tests online and say that it has a lot of questions and you can’t even solve all the questions and you don’t even need to solve all.( You need to solve many many more questions than available with just one publication or classes brand books) The reality is these online tests hardly have few hundred questions which have been broken into short tests of 20-25 questions each and some of the tests have hardly 5-6 questions too. But the presentation makes the student feel that there are a lot of tests. Some of them present an online software to tell you how need to improve and what is going wrong with your preparation. Well stop and think, is a human analyzing your performance and telling you what is going wrong after humanly understanding your doubts and clearing them and also taking into consideration your mindset during certain questions and during the exam , such analysis is better or a mechanically blind analysis of a machine? any software really cannot guide a student what is going wrong. Because only the humans can think and reason and analyze in totality!!! Softwares don’t think, they just respond to a computer program fed into them. NOTE: The big and famous foreign training centers do specialize in training only in U.S or U.K and they do not have any tie ups with any commission based university and are not regarded as consultants at all in U.S or U.K. There they are renowned for the training only. But in India the same consultants become trainers and it looks more lucrative to the student. Just consider that the training program with the same original international coaching class (whose franchisee is in India) is for 1200$ minimum in U.S for 25 hours program of 25 students in a batch, But in India these consultants who have bought such franchisee names hardly charge 20000. Think what is the catch?!!!!! Your low score and a commission based university staring at you post that, because you fell for the international franchisee brand name, forgot to check the difference between international and local standards of the same brand, assumed that it would be great and as good as possible, low fees and package deal. Some teachers talk very sweetly with the students. Thereby the student feels very happy with the teacher and feels very comfortable and goes onto ignore the ability of the teacher as comfort level and the sugar coated talks of the teacher takes priority over everything including reasoning ability of the student. The student gets super impressed with the smooth and sweet-talking of the teacher. The student gets sweet talked into the training. The teacher tends to say yes to every demand (timing, results etc etc) and question of the student and tries to please the student and develop a personal rapport with the student to convert the student for enrollment. Such teachers are sweet only till the time you enroll with them after the enrollment; you get to see their true colors. Where as a real teal teacher is someone who can tell you where you have gone wrong, your faults, your mistakes, what you lack, what is missing with your temperament right on your face so that you can improve. The real teacher wouldn’t bother if telling the truth hurts the student or not as it is for the students good to work on the mistakes and correct them for a better future. But some students take it to their ego and feel bad if the teacher tells the student their mistakes and starts disliking the teacher. The student should appreciate the person who tells them their mistakes on their face. The whole interpretation of the comfort factor is wrong wherein they ignore the fact that a real friend is not someone who praises you all the time rather a real friend is someone who can tell you about your mistakes on your face. Students should leave their ego behind. Some big name consultants also who have become famous for their consultancy have started GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT training as one of their services. But the reality is that these big names (who are famous for their university consultancy and application knowledge and are actually good at the university application and consultancy) don’t teach themselves for GMAT/GRE/SAT/ACT. They hire people (who have never taken the exam and who have no great qualification) at meager salaries for teaching. They provide these teachers some class sheets, instructor’s manual and some claimed self designed material to prepare the student and teach. These materials are also just lift ups of foreign material. The student goes there thinking that the brand name of the consultant is so big in terms of application consultancy that the GMAT training would be good too. No doubt the concerned consultant would be the best at consultancy but at training it is not the case. The student forgets that the big name consultant won’t be teaching himself/herself. Thereby the student suffers and these consultants tend to do their application and give a tie up college to them. Remember if the LCD tv of a particular brand is good that doesn’t mean that the Music system of the same brand would be good too. Go to the people for what they specialize in and not what they generalize in. Some teachers quote the classroom-training fee and claim to give personalized attention and training. Well do note that it is not personalized training that happens in the class rather it is classroom training only where in you learn in batch and the teacher addresses your doubts individually but during the class timings only. But the student gets only a one fifth of the time in a batch of five for his personal doubts or questions so how can it be called personalized training where only one student gets all the time. Some big brand name consultants offer free application consultancy for few universities along with the training as a free package. Otherwise they charge a substantial fee for application. This free application with training is nothing but an eyewash. All that they end up doing is that they tell you about some universities, and make you read some sample essays and some sample formats. Then when you write the essay on your own and give it to them for editing then all that they do is correct your coma and full stops and just the spelling check. They do not guide you much about the content as some counselor working with these brand names (who has never written the exam essays/AWA or the university essays and has never gone through the application procedure and is a mere graduate who is hired and presented by these consultants/classes as counselors) checks and edits your essays. Just imagine how badly are your playing with your own application if such counselors guide you about the content of the essay or edits your essay. Later you have to fedex your application and keep a tab of the deadlines of the application and the documents arrangement/sending and other requirements on your own. All that they do is just keep a meeting with you and tell you superficially. Student gets lured thinking about the free thing. Otherwise as well when you pay a substantial fee for the application the way they do things remains the same. So what is the difference or loss that they face if they give such a service for free. Just think!!! As everything you do on your own. But just for a couple of meetings and guidance tips you would be charged in between 20-30k. And sometimes they would claim it is free for a particular month as an offer. (Education abroad is not some shopping mall seasonal sale, it is a serious thing related to your career so think about it seriously). Interestingly the coaching fee for a particular exam would be lower than the original consultancy fee for universities by these big brand name classes. But they claim to give (seasonal or in a particular month) complete application and consultancy free with training. You can’t get things worth 100 rs. free with stuff woth 60rs. Think what is the catch?? is the training/consultancy really worth it if they have hidden agenda behind it?. Can you play with your career??? Remember Nothing that is good comes cheap or free. Some consultants claim to know about the preferences of the universities and what kind of students with what profile do they accept. Remember the admission officers and admission committee of every university changes every few years. And new committee or new officer may have new preferences. So there is no set pattern of the type of students every university selects every year. Such brand names of classes/consultants guide the students to a particular university and the student falls for it. Where as the mere graduate consultants working for these big brand names just recite what has been taught to them. Students can write an email to the university and ask directly what do they prefer and you would be surprised but they would say that they have no preference or bias. The university will say they want diversity and they look at a profile in totality and treat every profile with equality. Indian students fall for such consultants because they have big brand name classes associated with them. Some consultants are very sweet when you meet them first and don’t even charge anything for their first counseling. But if you want to meet them the second time without paying them anything then you will realize the difference between the first and second response. How money minded such consultants are will be evident to you. When you enroll with such consultants then you have to call and coax them ten times to send you the information (for eg: the essays, university list, deadline related information). Such consultants are not professionals as their entire team is made of their family members of son, father, husband etc. Their family members handle your application. There is a fine difference between professional handling and random handling. Also if you ask such consultants that how many students have gone through them to ivy league universities or the top universities elsewhere, then you wouldn’t find the result good. But if you ask such consultants how many students do they send abroad then you would find that they send more than 500 or 1000 students abroad. But do not be impressed there because these 500 students comprise of students who are send to commission based colleges where getting admission is not tough at all. Such consultants even offer you to write your essay or SOP.. The reality is that the consultant says that he/she will write your essays but the consultant herself/himself does not write your essays rather his/her subordinates who are mere graduates working as assistants are writing your essay by filling in the details given by you in a standard format. Do you want your essays, which are so important for your application, to be written or treated like that? …Do remember the genuine consultant would never write your essays or SOP. This is because when you write the GMAT or GRE or SAT the university can read your essays from the exam and also read your application essays. If by any chance the universities feel that someone else has written your essays or SOPs or the style and the tone and level of exam essays do not match your style and tone and level of the application essay, then they would reject your application or call you for an interview to judge your credentials and credibility. They are very careful about that. But do note for tie up or commission based universities these essays do not matter at all as the university just needs student at any cost and make money. Are you willing to treat your career like that?...Also if the consultant writes your essay then by default some content, style, tone would be similar to the essays written by the same consultant for other students in the past then the university can find instances of plagiarism and in such cases your are increasing your chances of rejection. So write your essay in your own style and tone and with your own content. Your friend may tell you that their essays were written by some consultant in the past and your friends got admission in the university, but do not rely and bank your career on fake things and lie. Be genuine. No good consultant will write your essays. Because once the university doubts your credibility then it’s over for ever. Once rejected due to such reasons then always rejected.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 12:28:51 +0000
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