As a CAT aspirant, selecting the Best Online CAT Preparation Course for yourself is perhaps the single biggest challenge you are faced with.
Best Online CAT coaching Versus Best Online CAT Coaching for you
It is important to understand that there is no “absolute” best online coaching for CAT. While there are several options to choose from when it comes to CAT exam online preparation the needs and requirements of each individual are different. What may be good for someone else may not be good for you, and vice-versa. Choosing coaching just on the basis of what others are doing is a sure recipe for disaster. Smart and successful people always take a decision on the basis of their needs; and as a result, they not only have more conviction in their final decision, but they are also more committed to making that decision successful.
The factors that you should consider while deciding which online classes for Online CAT Preparation Course that suit your needs the most depend upon your expectations from the coaching or your major reasons for joining a coaching in the first place, instead of preparing on your own. These factors could be:
1. Guidance & Mentorship
2. Discipline & regularity
3. Material, Tests & practice
4. Improvement &/or competition
5. Past results & student reviews
Guidance & Mentorship – Faculty in CAT Preparation Online Classes
Most leading CAT online coaching classes boast very qualified faculty members in their marketing. But it is important to ascertain the transparency with which they share the details and qualifications of these faculty members. Just the tagline of “an IIM alumni venture” will not suffice in ensuring quality in a classroom; nor would a big advertisement in a newspaper be of any help to you.
You need to know the details of faculty members who will actually teach and guide you throughout the course. Our research found that while some CAT online coaching classes like MBAGuru and IMS CAT Coaching have displayed the details of their faculty members, most other CAT online coaching institutes such as TIME and Career Launcher have only showcased their IIT-IIM management.
While some smaller online CAT coaching institutes also highlight their faculty strength, but such small teams come with other risks that you must recognize. It is not necessary that a good faculty for CAT is an IIM alumnus, the experience, teaching methodology of the faculty play an important role in the success of a CAT aspirant.
Discipline & Regularity in Online Coaching for CAT
One of the main reasons why many CAT aspirants opt for CAT online coaching classes is that it is difficult for most of us to be self-disciplined. While CAT preparation requires a regular effort, and almost all CAT aspirants realize this, it is quite a challenge to put in a daily effort over a prolonged period on our own. That is where the regularity of learning, practicing, testing, etc., comes into play as a major set of criteria to choose to coach.
Here, it is important to understand that while most CAT preparation online classes do ensure regularity, if your engagement is passive, you will soon lose interest. This is where the need for discipline becomes crucial, and if your CAT online coaching classes can help foster that discipline in you, you will zip ahead of 10000s of your competitors. In this area, we found MBAGuru’s compulsory homework policy among the bigger brands and among smaller coachings, Tathagat’s book reviews to be standout practices. At most other coachings, you get so much leniency or flexibility that the chances of your prioritizing something else over your CAT preparation will be very high.
Material, Tests and Practice in CAT online Coaching classes
The material you study and practice from, and the tests you use to improve your test-taking strategies also play an important role in your online preparation for CAT. While quantity wise some of the oldest CAT coaching institutes such as TIME and IMS have an edge, our research found out that over the past decade or so, the gap between the content of various CAT coaching institutes has diminished to near zero.
In fact, we found that the adaptive tests at more online-savvy CAT coaching institutes such as Career Launcher and MBAGuru could be more useful for practice and improvement than the standard set of material at other institutes. Adaptive tests allow you to work your way up gradually in the topics you are weaker in. Most big ed-tech firms across the globe are now following adaptive techniques that MBAGuru pioneered in the CAT online coaching domain.
Improvement &/or Competition at CAT Preparation Online Classes
One more reason why most aspirants join CAT coaching is with the purpose of competition. In this sense, instead of coaching, you can simply focus on the Test Series of some big coaching such as TIME or IMS.
A major reason that many CAT aspirants fail to realize as being paramount in their quest to join the best online course for CAT is an improvement. One cannot realistically compete without first improving. One may even argue that your real competition is with yourself and all you should bother about is becoming your best – and that gives you the best chance to compete also. From an improvement point of view, we liked the completely ADAPTIVE methodology and limited batch size of MBAGuru, which you can find out more about at their website .
If you are keen to get the best of both worlds, those of competition and improvement, a test series of TIME or IMS and the CAT Preparation online classes at MBAGuru would perhaps be the way to go.
Past Results & Student Reviews of CAT Online Coaching Classes
It is important that after gathering all information and shortlisting 1-2 Best Online CAT Preparation Course and The Coaching options for yourself, you take inputs of students who have experienced the entire coaching process from these places and then see which coaching best meets your requirements.
Below are the links to the past success stories at various CAT preparation online classes for your ready reference. We think you should give extra weight to video testimonials for their genuineness. The recent status of Google and dial reviews of leading online CAT coaching institutes are also tabulated below.
| Online CAT Coaching Institute | Significant Number of video reviews on website | Link of previously successful student stories | Google Reviews at flagship location | Just Dial Reviews for flagship location | |
| 1 | T.I.M.E. | No (2-3) | https://www.time4education.com/CAT-MBA | 4.4 rating (2364 reviews) | 4.0 rating (2085 reviews) |
| 2 | MBAGuru | Yes (50+) | https://mbaguru.in/success-stories | 4.8 rating (2541 reviews) | 4.9 rating (2086 reviews) |
| 3 | Career Launcher | No | https://www.careerlauncher.com/cat-mba/testimonials/ | 4.3 rating (504 reviews) | 4.0 rating (2281 reviews) |
| 4 | IMS | No | https://www.imsindia.com/CAT | 4.7 rating (148 reviews) | 4.0 rating (573 reviews) |
*Last Updated as on 28 June, 2021
Keeping all the above factors in mind and doing your homework accordingly can help you zero in upon the best
