New Delhi: When Abhinav Siwach, 28, scored 12th rank in the UPSC examinations in 2022, his face was plastered everywhere — full-page newspaper advertisements and billboards of coaching institutes across India. Ironically, all claimed he was their student.
Much confusion followed. He was flooded with calls from dozens of UPSC aspirants asking him for tips on which coaching institute to enrol into.
The reality was Siwach did not attend any coaching academy course for his 2022 attempt. He had only given mock interviews and used notes.
In the aggressive world of coaching institutes, success indeed has many parents. The same topper appears in multiple advertisements to shore up an institute’s brand value. Often without consent. And the advertisements embellish and tweak facts. Toppers aren’t required to have enrolled into the course and attended classes. Even a brief, fleeting last-minute engagement – like buying test series or notes or appearing for a mock interview — is considered enough to flaunt them as their own.
Claiming the success
Siwach, Garima Lohia (Rank 2), and Swati Sharma (Rank 15) were among the toppers whose pictures were used in advertisements by many coaching institutes such as Vision IAS, Next IAS, Sriram’s IAS, ForumIAS, Unacademy. Ads with captions such as “39 in the top 50 selection in CSE 2022” appear on front pages of reputable newspapers, with the photographs and ranks of the country’s UPSC toppers. These ads are used to sell the course and promote the institute to prospective aspirants. The campaign lasts for several days.
“Every day people from my old office called me after seeing my photo in the newspaper, asking how many coaching centres I went to for my preparation,” said Siwach, who is in the DANICS cadre, or Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. “But for this attempt, I did not go to any coaching centre. Although I did take some notes from one coaching centre and gave mock interviews.”
But at least four institutes have claimed him as their topper. Vision IAS posted a picture of Siwach saying he took classes in Optional Advance Course (sociology), Essay guidance, General Study, and Interview guidance.
“These coaching centres should show in which year all these courses were taken. I studied for my GS in 2020 and got selected in 2022,” says Siwach who attended classes for the optional advanced course from the institute in 2020, but didn’t clear the exam that year.
Aspirants routinely go to participate in several mock interviews of different coaching institutes where they may not have even enrolled. They do this to ensure they don’t leave any box unchecked in their preparations, and to cover all the bases and minimise risk of failure.
While many UPSC toppers said they usually overlook such practices, it does have a bigger cost.
“For new aspirants, such advertisements become confusing,” Siwach said.
Some toppers have raised this issue on Quora. Ira Singhal, the all-India UPSC topper in 2015, calls it a marketing stunt. “Even if you have gone to a coaching institute to take a sample free class, sometimes they would print your photos as their student after selection,” says Singhal, who is now the Special Secretary in Education Department, Arunachal Pradesh.
There is one way to deter this practice. Singhal said that the coaching institute should also write the name of the course that the toppers supposedly took along with the year. “Suppose I get selected for UPSC after four years of preparation. In the first year, the place from where I took notes did not work out for me. Then after two years, I studied from another place. But when I get selected, both coaching institutes print my photos,” said Singhal.
Coaching institutes say that an aspirant joins many coaching institutes in their UPSC journey. “There is a lot of truth in the fact that toppers take help from multiple institutes. They engage with different coaching at various stages,” says Shantanu, chief operation officer (COO) with ForumIAS.
Giving limited information about toppers can lead to misinterpretation, but not every institute functions that way. Some do mention the courses and year.
“I don’t want to comment on what other institutes do, but Forum IAS lists toppers with not only the name of their courses but also the year they took the course,” he adds.
The UPSC coaching industry is very competitive and everyone wants to show that they are producing a lot of toppers. But toppers also get multiple invites from the institutes where they go to give motivational talks after selection.
“It is the responsibility of the toppers to declare from their official handle where they have done which course. Some toppers go to coaching and give talks. That also sends a different message to new aspirants,” said Siwach.
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Test series, mock interviews
Every year, lakhs of aspirants take the UPSC Prelims exam, while a few thousand reach the Mains level. These coaching institutes keep a close watch on aspirants who clear Prelims in their first attempt but are trying for the Mains multiple times. These are the candidates, they know, whose chances of selection are high. Coaching people track these candidates down and call them to take a look at their test series and sometimes appear for mock interviews.
When one prepares for UPSC, they write test samples to increase their chance of selection. They get written feedback from the teachers during both Prelims and Mains.
“When I cleared Mains for the first time, I started getting calls offering me discounts in test series in my next attempt. The same happens with other aspirants,” says Sudhanshu Sharma, who is currently preparing for UPSC in Karol Bagh, a coaching institute hub in New Delhi.
These institutes collect data on every student who gets associated with them in any manner.
“We have a good research team of about 50-60 people who gather and monitor the data for the institute,” said B Singh, founder and CMD, Next IAS.
Many UPSC aspirants have posted questions on Quora regarding allegations that some coaching institutes offer money, trips, or invites to felicitation programmes organised by these agencies. But institutes deny such claims. “These are civil servants we are talking about and they are very talented and educated. I don’t think they can do anything like this. I can say I don’t know anything about this,” said Singh.
In the recent felicitation programme of Next IAS, the institute launched Hindi medium courses. It uses such platforms to promote the business and launch new courses.
“Felicitation is where all the teachers and chief mentors who have given the guidance to the toppers gather and motivate and congratulate each other,” said Singh.
The purpose of a ‘felicitation’ programme is for top students’ instructors and principal mentors to get together and encourage and applaud the toppers. Although the coaching institutes deny giving any kind of discount or advantage to the toppers, some aspirants said it indeed has happened.
“I got a call from a third party that an institute wanted to use my photos in their ads, for which they offered me money,” says a 2021 topper on the condition of anonymity, refusing to disclose the name of the institute.
Many times, toppers are not even aware which institutes have used their photographs.
“Even if someone wants to fight against their lies, they can’t because that is hard work and would take a lot of time. So it just goes on,” says Singhal.
(Edited by Prashant)