Category: CAT Mentoring

How is my CAT programme different?

My CAT coaching program is characterized by active mentorship, which emphasizes personalized attention and accountability. Key components of this approach include:

•One-on-one meetings: Fortnightly meetings are conducted to create study plans and review past performance…. These meetings help to structure and create discipline for the student.

•Personalized Study Plans: Each student is different. Study plans and schedules are co-created with the student, with an emphasis on gap identification.

• One-on-one doubt clearing: All doubt clearing sessions are live and one-on-one.

•Individualized Mock Analysis: After every four mock CATs, I analyze the mocks with each student in one-on-one sessions to identify gaps in preparation and strategy and to create a personal exam strategy. This is a key component of creating a robust, individualized strategy.

• Limited class size: I coach and mentor a maximum of 50 students per year to ensure he can personally teach, push, and actively mentor each aspirant.

• Mindset training: One-on-one mindset training is provided to maintain a positive and confident mindset throughout the preparation period.

•Active involvement: I am actively involved in each student’s journey and is interested in the 80% of preparation time that students spend outside of classes working on materials, taking tests, and analyzing them.  This includes planning, scheduling and monitoring this 80%.

•Live and recorded classes: I take all classes, which include a combination of recordings of live classes for the basics and live classes for advanced topics, previous CAT papers, MockCAT analysis, and strategy demonstration sessions. This makes the classes accessible to students as and when they want them – to study and revisit.

• Comprehensive practice: Students have access to a practice area with about 16,000 questions, 25 CAT mocks, 40 mocks for other exams, and 60 sectional tests

• Focus on accountability: Active mentorship makes students accountable for their performance by continuous monitoring, mindset training, creating milestones, frequent reviews, and co-creating solutions with an expert who knows the CAT.

•Personalized Strategy: Each student is different and a personalized CAT strategy is developed through regular one-on-one analysis of mock CATs.

• Emphasis on fundamentals: The program emphasizes the importance of understanding and applying fundamental concepts, rather than relying solely on shortcuts.

• Pace-setting: The mentor sets the pace for preparation and pushes the student to work at the required level of intensity to reach their goal.

• Challenge: Students are pushed to break out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves.

My program is designed to address the limitations of traditional coaching programs, which may not provide sufficient personalized attention or help students develop a robust strategy to handle the pressure of the CAT exam. The program focuses on the student’s individual needs and ensures they are accountable for their preparation and performance. The program emphasizes the importance of the 80% of preparation that occurs outside of the classroom and provides the support and monitoring necessary to succeed at CAT.

The aspirant thinks, “I know almost 90% of the portions. I can easily learn everything I decide to learn. Why should I pay for a mentor? It seems a waste. I can’t understand what value addition that extra cost for a mentor will get me?”

It’s quite possible that you may not need anyone to support you to learn the basics. Or you could register for a video course and get your knowledge up to date. Definitely a mentor cannot add value here. If you are presently less than the 90 percentile, what you would need is a good teacher, good classes and decent materials. Above the 95 percentile you don’t even need this. The plot gets thicker – then why the hell do you need to pay for a mentor?

The last mile: Many people talk about the ‘last mile’. What is it? It is a term used in the telecom industry, when optic fibre is being laid till the hub. But, the ‘last mile’ from the hub to the home remains copper wires. This becomes a constraint for getting good data speeds in spite of having done all the hard work of laying optic fibres. The last mile optic fibre connectivity will determine whether you are a winner or an also-ran.

Many people can reach the hub on their own, but very few can walk the last mile themselves. An experienced CAT mentor working closely with you, can work wonders in the last mile.

Usain Bolt does not need a coach to get him to the 9.7 sec range. He can do it himself. He needs the coach to shave off the last few micro seconds which makes the difference between an Olympic gold or an unknown athlete. Is the coach worth it? Bolt thinks so because he knows the value of the last mile.

There are CEOs who hire coaches, not because they don’t know how to run businesses. They need that extra edge that will determine whether they are a few jumps ahead of the competition. Else they will fall behind. Is the coach worth it? The CEO thinks so because he knows the value of the last mile.

In CAT, the last mile means the extra six to ten questions that can come into your kitty – the extra 20 to 30 marks. Letting that go would mean a drop from 99.7 to a 99 percentile or a drop from 99 to a 96 percentile or from 95 to below 90 percentile. Since value is also measured in terms of money, it could mean the opportunity cost of a lost year. It definitely will mean the drop of 25% to even 50% of your potential post MBA salary and the long-term impact on your career because of not getting the best possible opportunities.

CAT Mentor’s impact point 1: Around 20% of the work happens in the classes and videos, while 80% of the work is self-preparation. If you slip up on the 80%, you will not reach your potential score percentile score in CAT. A mentor who takes active interest in the 80% can ensure you will hit your potential score and beyond.

CAT Mentor’s impact point 2: At the next level, a good mentor will help you create a strategy that will stand up to the pressure of the CAT day. For every person who gets into the top school, there is an equal number of high potential candidates who miss out because they panic and crumble under the pressure of the CAT day. A mentor who analyses the mocks along with you, will be able to iron out a lot of issues. This will dramatically improve your chances of having a smooth exam day.

Combined Impact: An experienced CAT mentor, who monitors your 80% self- work and helps you create a robust strategy for your CAT exam, will maximise your chances of getting those extra 6 to 10 questions. Is it worth paying a mentor for those six to ten questions (last mile)?

You can assess the cost of hiring a mentor at two levels. At the first level, the value of the mentor to get you to the hub, and you assess, “it isn’t worth it”. You may be right in your assessment.

Now assess the value of the mentor to get you through the last mile versus the opportunity cost of a lost year or the loss of long-term opportunities (and of course money) by joining a college below your potential.

You are the best judge!

While taking decisions, people are likely to make two kinds of errors. The statisticians call it Type 1 error and the Type 2 error. Let me try and keep it simple and call them the ‘Visible error’ and the ‘Invisible error.’

As a CEO I recruit a bad egg and he becomes a thorn in the flesh of the organisation. This error is open (visible) to the world and my regret will be out in the open. Suppose I reject a highly potential employee, nobody in the organisation would get to know about it (invisible). I would not realise the opportunity that I had let go. Later, if I get to hear of his exploits in another company, I would have a regret and a fleeting thought, “What if?” Incidentally, to play safe, most people opt to make the invisible error because the pressure of failure is far less and nobody will know about it.

When it comes to CAT, the opportunity cost due to a bad decision is quite high. It could be the loss of a year or compromising with a B-school far below one’s actual potential. With the plethora of choices for CAT preparation, the possibility of making an error also multiplies.

Should I self-prepare? If you have already hit the 98/99 percentile in the previous CAT, you will do the right thing by self-preparing with the materials that you already have and write a couple of MockCAT series. The only real question would be “Should I have a mentor to also vet my preparation and also help me create a good a strategy for CAT?” If a mentor can iron out your gaps and get you from a 99 percentile to a 99.8 percentile, would it be worth it? You pick a bad mentor (maybe good but can’t give too much personal time for you) or fail to pick a good mentor. If you pick a bad mentor you regret will be money lost. If you let go of an opportunity to work with a good mentor, you wouldn’t know what have you missed until someone in the 99.8 percentile category tells you that you missed the bus.

Less than the 95 percentile: With almost everyone in this category looking at coaching support, it might be foolhardy not to seek coaching support. It will create a level playing field. Preparation is 20% in the institutes (classes) and 80% as self-practice at home. No matter how superior the 20% is, if the 80% doesn’t happen religiously, it is goodbye to CAT. All institutes (small or big) have good materials, teachers and tests. The 20% is well covered and these aren’t differentiators anymore especially in this age of ‘internet’. The real difference comes when the ‘top gun’ in the institute is able to spend personal time with the aspirant and takes active interest in the 80%.

The ‘safe option’ decision in CAT coaching: The safe option decision is one that your friends will not be able to make fun of you. Join one of the large brands, CL, TIME or IMS and if you don’t make it, you are the one to blame because you didn’t work hard enough. The question is never asked, “Did they even take the minimum effort to find out how you are doing the 80% self- preparation?”. They just don’t have the time or bandwidth or interest to get to that level because they have thousands of students. But the brilliant ones who are highly motivated produce results for them and the rest see the result posters and join them. What the ordinary aspirants don’t understand is that these brilliant guys are the ones who actually don’t need coaching at all.

The seemingly ‘unsafe’ option: The small guy with few students. The ‘top gun’ in an institute, who aspires to take active interest in the 80% will be a small player with a few students. He can’t be otherwise because as the number of students go up, it becomes impossible to give personal attention. Hence it will be a relatively unknown brand and with higher fees because of the much higher personal time spent on each student.

If you join up with a small guy and he turns out to be an anti-climax, that’s a visible error in front of everyone and your friends will tell you, “I told you so”. If you bypass a small player who could have worked wonders with you, nobody would blame you for it and no friend will make fun of you. You may never regret it too unless you later hear that he has done real quality work with his few students.

Employee or Entrepreneur: Would you like to look at your CAT coaching experience as an entrepreneur or an employee? The emotionally safe bet, the seemingly rational decision like an employee –pick the large brand. Or the intuitive decision and the emotionally unsafe bet, like the entrepreneur – pick the small player.

July mid 2019, four months to CAT. My son who had done his BA in English, came up to me and said that he wants to crack CAT. Knowing that he was not extraordinary and that he had scored only 70 percentile in CAT 2018, I asked him his target colleges. Pat came the reply ‘the top 10’. Probably he did not realise the enormity of the task that lay in front of him.

His next question was “When should I join T.I.M.E?”. He asked ‘T.I.M.E’ because I was part of it for 18 years. I had trained 10000 aspirants with hundreds in top schools. I’ve also cracked CAT multiple times with a personal best of 99.87 percentile. I knew a bit about cracking CAT.

I said, “T.I.M.E is good, but in my opinion, not the right choice for you. Only really good students can survive their course. You’re an average student. You could easily get lost in a big ocean like T.I.M.E. (or for that matter IMS or CL). Within a month of classes and a few mock CATs you may get demoralised. With only four months to go, I don’t see you scoring more than 85 to 90 percentile if you join them.”

The next decision was a life changing one for me. I had quit coaching a year ago and I enjoy my farming, cricket, business coaching and travelling. I didn’t want to compromise on that.

I was tense. A doctor never does ‘surgery’ on one’s child and I was going to do just that. If it fails, he would lose a year, or join a ‘C’ category college. The emotionally safe option for me was to allow the surgery to be done by one of the big three (TIME, IMS or CL) or some popular online CAT preparation centre. But I knew that he would stand a far better chance with me because I could actively mentor him.

I gave him an option, “You will need an individualised preparation plan, a stage wise material plan, a personalised strategy, a personalised daily, weekly and monthly schedule and someone to mentor, coach and handhold you.” I warned him. “Things will go bad, may get worse before it gets better and you will need a lot of emotional support, if you are aiming for the top schools. I can help you get there, provided you ‘stick’ to the plan inspite of all obstacles, disastrous mockCAT scores and fatigue.”

He signed up. There’s enough quality material available in the market and I took all the classes. He joined for a couple of mock test series. By Aug end, he started hitting the 85%, and by Sept end he crossed 90% for the first time. It was a slow journey to the top and there were many situations where he felt depressed with the mock cat scores, the silly mistakes, the lack of speed, the inability to pick up easy questions, the fatigue and the mentoring from one’s dad. That was the worst part for him. How many of you would like your dad to mentor you?

But once he saw that his scores on the rise he started trusting me far more.

With a score of 144 (98.1 percentile) and interview calls from IIMA among others, he told me that some of his friends were asking whether I could help them for CAT 2020. My son was insistent.

18 years I’ve done CAT training. It was in my blood. I realised that I missed teaching and being part of the lives of young energetic souls. Maybe, I could help a few serious students every year, crack CAT. And I decided an upper limit. Only 25 students per year, if I have to do real justice to them.

Thus was born catmentorship.com and my second innings with CAT preparation.

Having trained more than 10000 students for CAT over 18 years, I believe I have seen a broad spectrum of students. Between the ones who crack CAT and the ones who don’t, the difference is just ONE reason.

Just resolving this one reason helped my son who is a BA in English move from 70 percentile in CAT 2018 to 98 percentile in 2019 and get calls from top colleges including IIMA. To reiterate, he’s not an engineer from IIT. A BA in English. And he got just 4 months to prepare. (Read his CAT story here)

Let me give you a low down on CAT before I give you that ONE reason!

CAT is actually only an aptitude test with 8^th, 9^th, 10^th std Math, Logic and English. There are enough easy questions to easily get to the 90 percentile. Another way to look at it is that 90 percent of the people fail to solve the easy questions. And the easy questions are as simple as they can get. My son who was out of touch with Maths for the last four years, got a 96 percentile in quants.

It is not like an IIT JEE or an IAS entrance exam, which need depth knowledge and need two or three years of serious preparation. CAT is actually only an aptitude test like a bank test, but certainly more difficult.

With this background let me give you the ONE reason! It’s simple. Any person who puts in around 500 hours of quality preparation can crack CAT. To reiterate, the critical word is quality 500 hours!

In my 18 years I have asked many CAT aspirants ‘Why didn’t you do the quality 500 hours?”, they give many reasons

Reason 1: I joined coaching classes. But the classes were too fast and they were giving attention only to the toppers. If I had struggled on my own and reached 90 percentile, then they would have given me lots of attention.  I wish there was someone who could take me first to 90 percentile. 95 and 99 percentile is much later, right?

Reason 2: After starting classes I realised that I’m not good at Math. I could not solve most problems from the materials.

Insight: This is probably the most important insight for your CAT preparation. Personally I have not yet understood the reason why most coaching centres have more than half the questions well above CAT level. It is no wonder why you find Math difficult. You are working on problems that you don’t need to. You could actually dump more than 50% of the materials most coaching centres give you and still get 95 percentile.  But you need to choose the 50% intelligently!

Reason 3: I started my preparation with enthusiasm, but after a few weeks, something came up. Pressure at work, family function, a weekend trip with friends and I got diverted. If only I didn’t get diverted or someone pushed me back quickly and I started working with the same level of commitment.

Reason 4: Low Mock CAT scores. My confidence took a hit. Doubts kept coming up very often! Am I working on the right questions? Is my strategy correct? Am I making mistakes in my preparation? If only a CAT expert had spent multiple one-on-one sessions with me to find solutions to each of my problems.

Reason 5: I had prepared well but panicked on the D-Day. I don’t know what happened!

Insight: People who panic on the D-day are those who are not confident of their strategy. An initial setback can cause panic for those who have not spent enough time building a water-tight personal CAT strategy.

All these reasons have to be resolved because finally the quality 500 hours should happen. If an aspirant can ensure the 500 quality hours, or get external support to ensure it, he is sure to dramatically jump his CAT percentile.

At catmentorship.com, it is all about ensuring this quality 500 hours. Through active mentoring and not through passive mentoring. (Difference between active and passive mentoring)