Scaler Academy's "career threat" to students

Making fake unethical calls is not new for them, there have been cases before too.

Today it is him, tomorrow it could be us...

Source: mail

Review of Scaler Academy and suggesting every other India coder friend of mine not to get in the trap

I will not disclose who I am. Simple reason is we are normal middle class people who fear these people, they might screw us since they are powerful.

I belong to the May batch, am from a mediocre college. We had webinars, "dare to dream" sessions and much before enrolling in the course, not even a single day they did mention that you are here to learn, it was all about REFERRALS and REFERRALS. I was not a very good coder(5* at CC and 1550+ at CF), but I was good enough to crack the questions that Indian companies asked in the interviews. The only problem was our college did not have tech giants visiting. I enrolled, and we were assured that the referrals will start from September. After a month of the course, they attached a condition that you need to have problem solving percentage > 70% to appear for referrals. I did not want to miss this golden opportunity and used to solve the problems on a weekly basis and always had my % > 80. I approached them in September, they said referrals would start from December. We waited, on asking our point of contact, they had a reason ready every day. They said our attendance % is low, I increased it by playing all the videos on multiple tabs(I had no option, as this clause was not mentioned during the start). Then they started stating you have very less mentor sessions. I started doing them regularly and had the count up. I used to come across posts on linkedin, where "XYZ" companies were hiring, and asked my POC to manage me a referral, but after maintaining my %, attendance, and mentor sessions, these people did not reply to my texts. I ended up landing a job on my own and was very happu, within 1 week of it, I got a call from these people at Scaler asking me to write a testimonial. I denied at the first instance, then they started forcing me to write one for them. I did not want to mess with them, being a new grad. They posted it everywhere misleading people on how they help people to land a job. There was a lot of criticism few days over social media for Scaler, to which they released a video. The video has no mention of referrals, and speaks exactly opposite to what Scaler.com and their on-boarding webinars at youtube speaks of. Almost everyone of May batch is disappointed baring 20% of people who used to lick. They released a video after the criticism was done everywhere some days back,in that youtube video, a lot of comments were made, asking about referral stats, on how many were given to "FAANG", each of the comment in youtube that asked questions were deleted. For how long will people keep earning money playing with student's innocence. I urge my juniors not to get into this trap, it seems easy initially, because it's free, but once you start paying the EMI, it hurts as you never took any help, and despite that you are paying every month around 15-20K. 15% of your salary for two years is too much, udemy, coursera and many other offers courses at a very less amount. Practice from Leetcode, use geeksforgeeks and many other options are there.

To Scaler: Come out with referral stats, stop talking about "never-heard_name" company referrals, talk about "FAANG" stats as your webiste is filled with that, stop deleting comments, stop posting fake testimonials, stop misleading people.

Please spread the word.

Source: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/75707

Scaler Academy Review with Proof

Hello community, I am one of the ex-Scaler students from the April Batch. I got a job from Campus Placement and I got only one referral in the entire one year. Sadly, I need to pay them, hence I wanted to make people aware of some facts backed with proof, so that they do-not fall into this trap. I have seen a lot of things written about Scaler in the recent month. Scaler came out in public with a video on "What we do and Why we do", where they said their curriculum is focused on learning and not on jobs. But they end up getting disappointed, like most of us in our did.

In India, rarely people will come out in open to speak, because no-one wants to risk their future, so do I. People join such courses thinking that we do not need to pay now, we will pay when we get job. Hence they just join without giving it a second thought. But the main disappointment starts when you start paying installments for 24 months without getting any help to land up a job from the people whom you are paying. Let me bring to you some interesting facts about Scaler which proves that they sell their course on referrals and maximum people do join Scaler thinking that.

Their course costs you around 4.5L if you have a job paying around 15L base. It might cost you more if you have a good base salary. It is 15% of your base for 24 months.

4.5L for a course where you are teaching Data Structure for 3 months. Even red coders here will not charge you that much. Their entrance test has Questions from DP, Heaps, Trees and Graphs. Someone who knows these stuffs, does he even requires a course majorly covering DSA(3 months) for a huge chunk of 4.5L on average? The agenda of them has been, fooling good talent in the name of jobs, covering it up with DSA course.

 

We were near about 200 people in our April Batch who joined for the sake of a backup that Scaler might help us. Gradually with time, it appeared to us that they were hoping for us to get a placement on own rather then putting efforts to place us. Once we guys got a placement on own, the EMI plan was setup immediately, and they blacklisted us for future referrals since we crossed the slab. They say that they will keep referring us, but they don't once you are placed. The sole reason is they have got their money from you.

Only referrals were provided to Amazon which is considered to be a mass recruiter in India now, and every 3/10th people on Linkedin provides you a referral. Referrals to Lido learning was provided, but the people from my batch backed of, because the company had a legal case running. However some did join it, after joining those people had to use their laptops in work, they were not even provided with laptops, and those people are paying their installments and are really upset with the way they were cheated.

They state that they have 500 partner companies with them in their website. This is one of the other lies they have been spreading, they hardly have 8-10 companies, and they also hire a max of 10 people every year. If they had 500 partner companies, why were referrals not provided to us, May and June batch for Uber, Booking.com, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Tower Research etc?

In their recent video they released, if you ask them about referral stats, or anything is posted which goes against them, you will find that comment deleted withing an hour. Their new batch started this week, where to enroll people they published a blog which claims that 97% people were placed from the batch. The moment you take the entrance test and select people, you know those people are some of the best talents in India and will get a job. They released their placement stats, where you will not find a company which they mention in the above image.

Moreover they have not added a stat count on how many referrals did they provided to FAANG or other companies, which they boast of during the enrollment. The companies listed below are not even the names they mention in their websites. They have added 4 count to Amazon placed people in the name of PPO just to fool people around and boast them of fake numbers. Amazon Interns have confirmed that Amazon never confirms PPO chances before the internship ends. Moreover, Amazon did a intern drive for entire India and this was open to all. They claim to refer people to De-Shaw. What they simply do is, they go on to Careers site of De-Shaw and fill up your application form, and you get a test link(saying this because referral test of De-shaw is of 70 minutes, and the career site test is of 100 minutes). Then they term this as a company referral. Link to blog.

They have banners which states that there are all the top people teaching the course. Truth is, the people in the banner hardly take 3/4 classes each for the sake of the banner they posted. Most of the classes are taken by some guy who is not that good, or someone who is graduating in 2020 without any industry experience. Previously they gave good slabs to people joining them, they have started giving slabs of 7/8 to the new batches, which is a clear indication that they do not have companies to refer too.

They have some set of mentors who take the mentor sessions for the sake of 1.5K that they get per session. On an average every guy does 7-10 sessions. This is because whenever you approach Scaler for referrals, they will carve out a reason of the ground. Sometimes it will be, your problem % is less, sometimes your attendance, sometime your mentor session is less. And at the end when they are not left with reasons, they come up "What we do?, Why we do?". They claim they spend lacs of rupees for every student, hence their fees is that high. Let me bring you up some calculations.

Average 8 mentor sessions costs 1500 * 8 = 12k.(Source: Mentor). Everyday a class is taken by an instructor who teaches roughly 50 people(50 because most of the people do not join classes after 2/3 weeks) for 2.5 hours. In India, the average fees for an instructor teaching is 3k/hour at a maximum(it is 2k/hour on average). Lets take 10k. So 10k/200 = Rs 50 per day. Every month they have 20 classes, at max they will have 140 classes in 6 months. I have taken the extreme higher limit of everything. Which eventually costs you 7k across 6 months. Since they are not providing you with referrals, I am not adding any money count to it. They for sure do-not have 500 partner companies, lets round off 12 + 7 = 19k to 25k. The profit margin which they are making is immense, 4.5L — 25k is 4.25L per student. I say per student because, maximum people will eventually get placed with the talent they possv when you are binding them for 1.5 years under you in the name of a contract.

I started practicing at Interview-Bit in my second year. I was so pleased with the platform they had then. Then the Scaler thing came up giving us so many hopes. But eventually it is all about making money. The so known good guys(Abhimanyu and Anshuman) are exploiting Indian talent to earn big. This needs to stop. I will urge everyone to share this post as much as you can, the exploitation of talent needs to stop.

Link to the previous CF blog: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/75463, https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/75707

Scaler Academy honest reviews

----------
I am from April Batch(2020 UG) having good amount of grip in dsa and I too enrolled for this course. My review is: Haven't got referrals. Haven't got any job. Their instructors keep on fluctuating, the best till now that we had got left Scaler(IB Academy). I knew this is going to happen the moment they started creating more batches. They simply tried to make money without considering that their source of income is referrals and no sane person will pay this much huge amount for just a course which can be easily found on tons of YouTube channels like Tushar Roy, Gaurav Sen, Rachit Jain ..... The students are coming in Scaler because they belong to either Tier 2 or Tier 3 colleges and they need referrals and the moment they join Scaler it indicates that they know something at least. But seeing the kind of referrals they give as they say, it's better to apply online and try your luck it's anyways same. So rest depends on you. There are 1100+ students and it's not possible to get everyone of them 12+ lpa. All they could have done is first give referrals and job to current enrolled batch. And after everyone is given above x(cut off limit), then start new batch. This multithreading approach went horribly wrong for students. From April batch mostly Experienced professionals only got job. The sad reality is we are afraid, for us who don't have job are afraid even now to say anything publicly. Good Luck in minting money IB !

----------

April Academy student, Tier 2 college(2020 grad). I joined scaler(InterviewBit) for referrals. After joining they kept adding new conditions every day that was neither present before nor told when I joined. First they added 70% problem-solving criteria than mentor session and attendance criteria. I did everything Crossed 70% & minimum mentor session everything they asked. And I full filled each and every criteria. Than they came up with new "excuse". They told me that "we have referrals for immediate joiners and you are not yet graduated so wait for it".🤣🤣 Just one question if you don't have referrals for freshers than why did you promised. You should have started it for passouts.

----------

I am a student at the scaler academy. Despite having a problem-solving percentage above 70%, I haven't got any single full-time referral from them till now. The only referral that I got was for an internship that too in Jan. They don't even respond to your queries, forget about referrals. When Amazon was actively hiring, I asked someone from IB that whether I should apply on my own or will you give me a referral. They told that since your current Problem-solving %age is less than 70( it was around 66% at that time), you should not apply for it now. First, make it 70% and then we will refer you. I increased my PSP to 70% within 3 days and asked them for amazon referral. But now, they told that Amazon is not hiring currently. Also about the codenation thing, I applied for CodeNation test via the Google form link that was posted by CodeNation on their LinkedIn page. After a few days, I received the same link from IB saying that it is a referral for CodeNation and when I opened that google form, the form was already filled(because I already filled that form from company's LinkedIn page). What it means is that they were sharing the same link that was posted on the Company's Linkedin page making it as their referral.

----------

Share your stories for scaler academy to scaleracademyfraud@gmail.com

If anybody wants his/her story to get published on this blog, mail it to 

scaleracademyfraud@gmail.com

Interviewbit Scaler Academy Fraud | Scam Academy Exposed

Hello, I was enrolled in Interviewbit(Scaler academy) course in May 2019. I belong to tier 3 college. Only companies with max 5-6 lack per annum come to my college. In the hope of getting into good companies, I decided to join Interviewbit. I qualified their entrance test which is hard in itself for many average coders in India. Then in the hope of securing good referrals, I used to maintain my Problem-solving Percentage above 80% most of the time.

When the time of referral come in September — October 2019, they were saying that right now companies are hiring for on-campus and thus we will refer you around November. I believed them. Continued to solve problems working day and night, burning the midnight oil, just in a hope that if I get a referral of good companies.

Now, when when it is November 2019, they came up with a new excuse. They told that we are in talks with top tech companies, you will soon hear good news from us. Then many days passed. Nothing happened. I was still hoping that i will get a call soon. In February, I again asked them, I didn't receive a call from any company. They said let me check.

Next day they told that many companies are now hiring from tier 1 colleges. Once the hiring is over we will refer you soon. Then I realized that they are liars, cheaters. I had only 1 offer from the company which came to my college of 5.25 lacks. I became very disappointed by the response of the interview bit. I started asking for referrals on Linkedin. As I was not from a good college, I have only my programming achievements like 5* on cc and expert on cf and kickstart, FB hacker cup and code jam ranks which i secured, and projects to show to people whom I asked referral with. I shared my resume with people from companies Goldman Sacs, Morgan Stanley, DE shaw, Amazon, Google, Flipkart etc. And to my surprise, they agreed to refer me. I will not tell the entire process as it would be too long. Now I have fte offer from a very good company and currently pursuing an intern. The sad thing here is that in the hope of securing referrals of google from Interviewbit, I didn't apply through careers and now their off-campus hiring for 2020 graduates are closed. I asked people from google, 90% of them agreed to refer me, but the problem is there is no hiring for 2020 now. They told me that once you get a suitable job ib, please me. I will refer you.

Now, I still have to pay 3 lacks to interview bit as it was mentioned in the contract that even if you get a job yourself you will have to pay them. Even they didn't refer me in a single company. Such a shameless people they didn't hesitate to ask money for which their contribution is 0. Now they have removed the cap of 3 lack also. If you secure a job of 16 lacks per annum, you will have to pay 5 lacks to them. Such a huge amount of money for such pathetic things. This money increases with your offer. they are liars, cheaters and fraud. they will have to bear the curse of students.

They have come up with new things in the contract which tells that, you can't publish any statements against them, which may be a concern to the company or company's product. They don't want to let their things out to the world, But these duffers don't know that there are many other means to tell people about their true colours.

Let me also tell you their business model, They will not give you referral till the end of the session, and when your end of contract date will approach, they will refer you in pathetic companies with CTC just greater than the CTC they provided in the contract. Many students who don't have the job offer, in desperation agrees to accept the offer and they still have to pay them. This is their fraud model. don't give referrals, and when the session comes to end, try to gain from insecurities of students, refer them in some pathetic startups and claim the money.

I just want to tell my juniors that if you have talent, you don't need any other thing. Before joining Inteviewbit I was pretty good in programming. I just joined for a referral but they cheated. Please don't let yourself in their trap.

Source: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/75463

Scaler Academy Scam Fraud Exposed

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWABtcS8SU8&t=905s