It is a very familiar scene across India. These bunch of students dream about nothing but a single December Sunday Morning for more than a year. For their performace on this D - Day determines whether they make it to the top B Schools of India or condemmed to the second rung colleges. Infact atleast 6 of the top 10 B schools of India subscribe to CAT (IIM - A, B.C, L , MDI, SPJIMR).
The other exams are no less tougher, be it XAT (XLRI &XIM), FMS and JBIMS. One key requirement to crack these exams is training. I personally feel that the difference between CAT/XAT and JEE comes in that, in JEE - brilliance can help you clear the exam but the same cannot be said for the MBA entrance exam. Practise and prseverence are the most important qualities required here. This is where the coaching institutes come in. They prepare you for the exams by flooding on you numerous exams and quizzes. and the best of the lot is IMS Started 25 years ago, IMS is India leading B School preparator. I had subscribed to their correspondence course and later shifted to the crash course.
I can point out the 5 main advantages of this course
Basic Material: You are given a basic reference material in te beginning. This shall help you in dusting your memories. The best thing about IMS basic notes is that the qustions for solving dwelves on issues outside the material also, so that it makes you think. That has always found to be useful in cracking exams
Test Schedule: By the time I sat for my CAT exam, I had given 10 tests in the class. This had helped me prepare my fundas, my strategy for the exam and also the mental preparation. The tests are usually tougher than the last years CAT and hence is a fair indication as to what score can be acheived in CAT
Guidance: Guided by people who have passed out of the IIMs/XL., I was lucky enough to get peopel with good communication skills and helping tendency. I cannot assure you that the same will happen in every IMS center. But more or less, people with excellent credentials seems to be the rule in the place.
PI & GD: The same applies here, the meticulous training for GD and Interview was useful when I went for many a interview process. Also, apart from the general training, I was given special attention once my shortlists started pouring in. I had 1-2 rounds of interview for each of my shortlist. And the people taking the interview were alumni of the insti and know a little about the panel or people with a huge experience in taking interviews. And I got humped in each of these interviews, thus making sure that they pinpoint to the areas that I had not concentrated upon.
Mental Preparation: In IMS Chennai, where I took my training, I had close to a 1000 guys along with me. Hence I was mentally prepared to take on a large number of people. The case against the smaller institutes is that the students are not prepared to face a large crowd as they are limited to a very small crowd during their preparation Things that have to be kept in mind when deciding on IMS
They do not guarantee you a shortlist.
The material for non CAT exams was less than satisfactory (2 years back). The training was also CAT focussed that the concentration was less on other exams. A decent amount of criticism should also go to the students as they feel that CAT is the end of the world and throw up their towels once CAT is through. There are many other exams than CAT and hence concetration on them is also essential.
Though the material is good and tougher than CAT, usually they are stereotype and hence can catch people unaware when the pattern changes. You can protect yourself from this by solving papers from other institutes also But, if you are serious about CAT and MBA - give IMS a very hard look .......