What is the right time to start IIT-JEE Preparation?

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. - Mark Twain. When to start preparing for IIT-JEE? Is 9th grade the correct time to start? Is 12th grade too late to start? These questions haunt every IIT-JEE aspirant! But not anymore! Because we are here, to answer all your questions and explain to you logically what is the correct time to start your IIT-JEE preparation! Why is 9th grade too early to start? Many coaching classes would advise you to start your IIT-JEE coaching from 9th class itself! But here is why we think it is blunder to start too early - Is it yet the time to choose your stream? - We believe that the 9th standard is the time which should be spent exploring each and every career. Researching about the career paths, understanding what it takes to be successful in the chosen career, realising where your interest lies should be the priorities at this time. Sometimes, it may happen that you develop an inclination towards another career once you properly probe into every career path. So, this time is not to jump blindly on any path but to analyse each one properly. Do you still have the understanding to comprehend the complex concepts? - Each class forms the basis of next class. Learning the complex fundamentals without making your base will confuse you and may even demotivate you. You may give-up on your preparation thinking that you do not have the calibre but the fact is you have not developed your understanding yet to grasp those concepts. Please understand that there comes a major curriculum shift when you go from 10th to 11th standard. You get introduced to concepts like integration, differentiation etc in 11th standard which forms the basis of IIT-JEE preparation. Learning those concepts in 9th grade itself is too complex for your brain! Now, some may argue that what if we are sure about pursuing the science stream and want to work towards enhancing our basics? Well, in that case you should prepare and appear for national competitive exams of your level which are meant for your age group. Go for exams like olympiads, NTSE, NLSTSE, NBO etc. These exams will strengthen your basics that you will need, to form the base of your IIT-JEE preparation. Why is 12th grade too late to start? You would come across many articles on the internet that will have the success stories of aspirants cracking the JEE exam with a few months of preparation. But let us tell you why is it wrong to get inspired from them - One-in-a-thousand cases! - We do appreciate and applaud for such aspirants but would also like to point out that these are cases of exceptional brilliance and are found one-in-a-thousand! We do not say that you do not have such calibre but why to take the risk? Too little time! - Now, if you start taking IIT-JEE classes from 12th standard you will have to opt for crash courses and attend long coaching sessions because the syllabus is huge and you have just 6 months until your JEE. Now, you may argue that you have the second attempt as well. But understand that here you are missing the advantage of having two attempts to crack JEE. Because at the time of the first attempt you were under-prepared! Too much on the plate! - In 12th grade you have boards and internal exams as well which have a good weightage in deciding your rank. Now, handling boards, internal exams, practicals, and long coaching sessions can be too much pressure. It can be difficult to maintain a balance and you may end up messing everything! Why is 11th grade the perfect time to begin? We at, Career Launcher, strongly believe that 11th grade is the right time to start your IIT-JEE preparations. And we have logical reasons to believe so - Understand the Math - JEE exam tests you on three subjects - Physics, chemistry and Mathematics. Each subject has a huge syllabus of approximately 30 chapters each! That means you have approximately 90 chapters to prepare. Now when you start your preparation from 11th class you have exactly 1.5 years until your first JEE attempt! That is roughly 450 effective days (excluding the time you will need to prepare for your boards and other things.). So, you have 5 days to prepare one chapter. Now this, will include practicing and revision as well. And we guarantee that this much time is optimum for acing your JEE exam! In sync with your school curriculum - We, at Career Launcher make it a point to sync our study plan with that of your school. This will save you from getting confused. Also, you will get a good revision this way. Now, lets say, you are one or two months late in joining the classes then this could result in rushing up a little and you find it a little difficult to catch-up! So, we advise you to start your coaching immediately one-two weeks after your 10th boards. We hope that the above pointers answer your questions and help you in making the right decision! Do, share this with your friends and family to help them find answers to their questions as well. Stay tuned for information on our courses and new batches. Career Launcher wishes you godspeed for your future!