With over 30,000 aspirants applying every year and only the top 500 getting into IIM Indore or Rohtak, IPM is certainly the toughest to crack entrance in undergraduate management education.
To increase the odds of getting in, students tend to opt for coaching classes- both online and offline. However, with the coaching industry getting heavily corporatised and new entrances coming in now and then, it gets very hard to decide which one to go for.
In this article, I’ll try to give my take on how do you select the best coaching for IPMAT preparation.
To begin with, one needs to be clear with if they even need to opt for coaching. If you’re not certain about it, you can have a look at this article where I answer the question – Is coaching necessary for IPM?
Assuming that you’re done figuring it out and feel like you require that extra push from someone to get ahead of the curve, I’ll now discuss the qualities of good coaching and what parameters you should look for while selecting the best IPMAT coaching institute.
Disclaimer: I run AceIPM, an online preparation platform that caters specifically to IPMAT aspirants. While I’ll try to answer this question as objectively as possible without any bias, take it with a pinch of salt.
Qualities of a Good Coaching Institute
1) Faculty
A highly qualified and experienced faculty is certainly the backbone of a good coaching institution. While the faculty for online institutes and programme is going to be good in general, some offline institutions might trick you by showing the demo of their head faculty but the ones who’ll teach you are not going to be that experienced so be mindful of that.
Another aspect to look out for is if they have any prior experience with the exam if they understand it well enough to be giving you advice and guidance.
What ends up having is the faculty is well-versed with the CAT exam but have no clue about IPMAT as it’s a relatively new exam with less number of applicants: making it financially unattractive to be paid attention to.
2) Study Material
Just like with the faculty, a comprehensive study material that caters specifically to the IPM aspirants is necessary. More often than not, big coaching institutions that run multiple batches for various entrances borrow this from their CAT material. The level of CAT material is usually a notch above than what is required so you may end up wasting your precious time, solving questions that aren’t going to be in the paper anyway.
On the contrary, others might give you generic BBA entrance preparation material which caters to all BBA entrances including IPU, NMAT, SAT, and others. In this case, the material is going to be easily-solvable and might not paint a true picture of how the questions in the actual paper are going to be.
When looking for the best IPM coaching, make sure that they either specialize in IPMAT preparation or at least have a separate department dedicated to it.
3) Mock-Tests
Regardless of you opting for coaching or not, having access to mock tests is absolutely essential for a highly-competitive exam like IPM. Mocks help you analyse the areas you need to work upon and paint a true picture of your current standing so that you can optimize your preparation strategy accordingly.
I’ll reiterate what I’ve said earlier, you need to ensure that the mocks are just the level of IPMAT or a tad bit more difficult.
The coaching who lack IPMAT specialization tend to have generic mocks with no differentiation amongst them, except for the paper pattern. This can lead to you getting a false sense of the exam being way too easy or overly difficult. To avoid the same, one must look forward to those coaching institutes who take mocks seriously, preferably the ones who’ve given the exam themselves and know what the level of questions actually is.
4) Personal Attention
Course material, teaching pedagogy is just one part of the equation, the support system you’re provided with is another.
Despite being one of the most important factors while deciding a coaching institute, the level of personal attention is often overlooked. Part of the reason is you can’t objectively measure it and will have absolutely no idea about it unless you join the coaching institute yourself.
An institute that focuses on giving personal attention will help you attain your goals in YOUR way and not put forward any generalized strategy that would be used by everyone in the batch. It also helps in doubt-solving and any problem that you might encounter during your preparation process.
From my experience and the shared experiences of others, I can tell you that most big-name institutions lack this. Them being too big is one reason as it becomes a mammoth task for them to give personal attention to so many people. For them, you’re just a number in their excel sheet.
Which is the best coaching for IPMAT?
AceIPM is the best IPMAT online coaching platform that you can join for IPMAT preparation.
As mentioned earlier, I’m one of the cofounders of this institute and have been overlooking operations since its inception, so I can tell you what sets us apart.
1) Experienced IPMAT Faculty
All the courses of AceIPM are taught by well-qualified, considered one of the best IPM coaching and experienced faculties who’ve been a part of the IPM themselves.
The content production department is headed by my cofounder, Swapnil Bhartiya, who secured AIR 756 JEE Advance, AIR 47 VITEEE, AIR 63 NDA, state rank 1 IMO, and is an NTSE scholar. He’s currently studying in IPM, IIM Rohtak on 100% scholarship.
His efforts are supplemented by others who’ve actually given IPMAT and know what is actually required to ace it.
As far as the PIWAT preparation goes, I’m the in charge for it. I’ve been a digital entrepreneur for about 5 years now and have taken multiple rounds of interviews to hire people so I know what it takes to crack one.
2) Comprehensive Study Material
Our study material is vetted by students who’ve cleared IPMAT and has been created specifically for this exam. For us, IPMAT is a priority and other exams follow along.
The tricks mentioned and the type of questions are all suited-well for IPMAT preparation and can help you gain an edge over others from this best coaching for IPMAT.
3) Quality Mock-Tests
Our team has created specialized mock tests taking into consideration past year papers and predicting future trends. It’ll help you analyse your current standing and we’ll also help you develop a course of action for further preparation making them the best IPM coaching.
4) Emphasis on Personal Attention
Being small is one of our strengths. It helps us give personal attention to all our students and solve all their doubts and queries, as and when they arise. Our team is as motivated as you are and works round the clock to ensure that you clear IPMAT in your first attempt. You’ll also be assigned mentors (your seniors in IPM) so that you can reach out to them should the need be.
We also take your feedback seriously and implement it as quickly as possible. Because you connect directly with the cofounders, there is no red-tapism involved and we are able to take quick actions based on your preferences.
Conclusion
If you’re an IPM aspirant willing to join an entrance preparation course and be guided by your seniors-to-be, you should definitely check out our offerings.
We look forward to having you onboard and work alongside you to create a positive impact on your life. You can connect to us for a free counselling session to clear all your doubts. We also offer a demo-walkthrough of our course so that you can see the quality by yourself and make a decision.