Vidyamandir classes
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Vidyamandir Classes (VMC for short) is a for-profit coaching institute in Delhi for the all-India examination IIT-JEE through which people enter the IITs. The training provided at Vidyamandir is also considered good for other engineering entrance examinations.
There are other institutes for training in IIT-JEE and this article is just an other spanning effort
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[edit] Courses
[edit] For people finishing tenth standard
Vidyamandir offers a Regular Classroom Course (RCC for short) that goes on for two years, beginning in the April after the tenth standard board examinations and proceeding until the April of the IIT-JEE. The course is split into modules, with regular testing, in the form of:
- Test Series: These are conducted at Test Centers in Delhi with a real-time testing flavour. The Test Series are corrected either by the teachers or by some of the ex-students. Altogether, 10 tests are held in this series.
- Class Tests: Several surprise class tests are held during the lecture hours.
- Module Tests: These are given along with the Study Package to be tried at the end of each Module. Students are supposed to evaluate themselves.
The Regular Classroom Course is taught by the three brothers running Vidyamandir, namely:
- Brijmohan Gupta, also known as bade bhaiyya: Chemistry
- Shyammohan Gupta, also known as chhote bhaiyya: Physics
- Manmohan Gupta, also known as munna bhaiyya: Mathematics
All of them are IIT passouts.
The administrative in charge, Mr. Sandeep Mehta, also takes close interest in the performance of the students and acts as a guide throughout the 2 - year journey
More than 10,000 students from Delhi and neighbouring regions sit for the Admission Test to the course and less than 200 are selected.
The new pattern is quite different from the old pattern wherein there was Phase I (April to October of the first year) and Phase II (November of the first year to December of the next year) and a Final Step (January to April). In the earlier system, there was an Admission Test for Phase I with over 10,000 students sitting the test. Admission to Phase II was based on an Admission Test to Phase II as well as the performance during Phase I. Through this test, students doing the Correspondence courses and giving the Test Series of VMC had an opportunity to join.
All students from Phase II received direct admission to the Final Step, and some additional batches were also taken.
Recently, Vidyamandir has also introduced an Extended Classroom Course (ECC for short) for the students who just miss making it to the RCC. These classes are taught by VMC passouts who have made it to IIT and the course is run in a similar way to the RCC.
The teachers for the ECC are continually changing. At a certain point of time, they were:
- Subham Mittal (AIR 6 and IChO Gold Medalist), Akshay Dua ( 2nd year civil engg.IITD ), Palvinder (2nd Year, IIT Delhi) : Physics , Aditya Bhalla ( IITD Elec. Engg. 4th Yr ), Lakshay Behl(IITD Civil Engg. 1st year)
- Vivek (Working full time at VMC): Mathematics
- Kulwinder (IITD Passout) : Chemistry
[edit] Courses for younger students
With the market for coaching for +2 getting saturated, coaching institutes are now trying to target students from junior classes. Vidymamandir has introduced a course with the purpose of bridging the gap between the level of difficulty of the class ten examinations and the rigours of the IIT-JEE examination. This course is called MathGenii and comprises ten classes in mathematics for students of tenth standard.
[edit] Courses for twelfth standard passouts
Vidyamandir has also introduced a one-year course for twelfth pass students. This course is usually attended by students doing engineering or science courses at other colleges, who want to attempt the JEE again. The batch is thus often called the B.Sc. batch or buddhon waala batch (batch of old people).
[edit] Online test facility
Vidyamandir claims to be the first coaching institute in India to offer an online testing facility for IIT-JEE preparation. Currently, the facility is available only to regular classroom students, though VMC plans to make the facility available to other students as well.
[edit] Venue, timing etc.
[edit] Venue
The Vidyamandir Classrooms are located in the Central market of Punjabi Bagh (West) located in West Delhi. The classrooms are in an office complex. They are well-lit with air conditioning and white boards to facilitate easy viewing. Earlier, the classrooms were located in a house in Punjabi Bagh, where they were somewhat cramped.
The location is quite distant particularly for students living in South and East Delhi.
[edit] Duration and content
Each class at Vidyamandir is of one subject and is officially meant to take three hours. However, the classes often overshoot this time limit and can be expected to, on the average, finish four hours from the time of official starting.
The typical way a class proceeds:
- Students arrive by about fifteen minutes before the class begins. Attendance is taken.
- Study materials, class tests and other things are distributed.
- The lecture begins. The lecture usually begins within half an hour of the scheduled time.
- The lectures goes on for about 3 to 3.5 hours. There are no official breaks, though the lecturers may give short breaks. Sometimes, to break the monotony, and also to prepare the students psychologically, the lecturers may start discussions not directly pertinent to the subject, but related to life and JEE preparation in general.
- The lecture ends, and students ask the lecturer their doubts (this is usually informal, outside the class).
[edit] Frequency, timing and schedule
There is no general weekly schedule (as of 2006). The following guidelines are typically followed:
- Classes on working days, during periods when school is open, are usually held at 3:30 p.m. This is unless all students are willing to forgo attending school to have a morning class.
- Classes on other days are held in the morning, starting somewhere between 9:30 and 11:00.
- Each class is of only one subject( with sometimes a surprise test right before the class begins).
- Classes are held approximately once a week.
[edit] Performance and locus standi
[edit] Percentage success
Vidyamandir has a high success rate ranging between 60% and 80%. The recent trend, however, indicates that their percentage success rate is declining somewhat.
Figures:
- 2006: 63.27% in RCC i.e. 174/275
- 2005: 68.9% in RCC i.e. 178/258
- 2004: 74.4% in RCC i.e. 191/258
While looking at the percentage success rate and its slight decline, we must keep in mind the following:
- The number of people appearing for the IIT-JEE examination, as well as the number of coaching institutes, is rising steadily. Thus, percentage success rates are bound to decline.
- A large number (over 10,000) of people sit the entrance test at VMC, and the top 200 are selected. Most of the selected students join the institute. This indicates that to a large extent, their success depends on the quality of student intake.
- The percentage success rate is only indicative of the total number of people who make it through the JEE. Many of these students may have ranks that do not leave them with the flexibility of joining good courses at IIT.
[edit] Positions in the top ranks
Vidyamandir has about 9–10 students in the all-India top 100 every year, with a significant dominance in the Delhi region. Its result at IIT-JEE varies from 50 - 75% which is a staggering achievement looking at the number of students getting through JEE are only 2% of the lot that takes the exam. It is this ratio that makes JEE arguably the toughest exam at the under-graduate level in the whole world. At the same time, a large number of VMC students score ranks in the range of 3000-4000, which bars them from taking up good options at IIT. As far as Delhi is concerned, Vidyamandir Classes dominates the CEE (combined engineering exam for DCE and NSIT, the two engineering colleges under Delhi University) result. Out of the 1000 odd student that get through out of around 150,000 candidates around 200 are from VMC. Hence almost all the VMC students get through the prestigious CEE Delhi state level pre-engineering test.
[edit] Competition within Delhi
Vidyamandir's main competitor in Delhi is FIITJEE. In terms of scale and appearance, FIITJEE contrasts sharply with VMC: while VMC is a family-run outfit taking only 250-300 students for its Regular Classroom Programme, FIITJEE takes over a thousand students for its regular programmes. While Vidyamandir maintains a low profile and engages in selective advertising and word-of-mout publicity, FIITJEE splashes two-page spread ads on the sports page.
