Every admission season - May, June, July - the same thing happens at Newton's Academy in Mulund West.
Parents call. Students walk in. Some of them are genuinely motivated, well-prepared, and exactly the kind of students we would love to teach. And sometimes - not always, but sometimes - we have to tell them that the batch they want to join is full.
We could add seats. We have the classroom space to fit 50 students instead of 25. We have been offered that suggestion - by well-meaning people who point out that 20 additional students per batch, across multiple batches, would mean significantly more revenue every year.
We have never done it. And this blog is about why.
The Decision That Defined Newton's Academy
When Newton's Academy started in Mulund West in 2014, the batch size limit of 25 students was not a carefully researched strategic decision. It was an instinct - born from a simple belief about what good teaching actually requires.
Good teaching requires knowing your students. Not their names on a register - their actual academic personalities. Which chapter clicked for them last week and which one they are still uncertain about. Whether the confusion in their face during a lecture is "I need to think about this more" or "I genuinely have not understood and won't ask." Whether their mock test score dropped because of a knowledge gap or because of exam anxiety they are hiding from their parents.
You cannot know these things about a student in a batch of 60. Or 80. Or 100.
You can know them about 25 students. If you are paying attention.
And so - before we had results to prove it, before we had 185 Google reviews, before we had students going to IIT Bombay - we decided that 25 was the number. Not 35. Not 40.
What Actually Happens in a Large Batch
We are not being unfair to large-batch coaching institutes when we describe this. This is simply what the mathematics of attention produces.
In a batch of 80 students - a common size at several coaching institutes in Mumbai - a teacher has 45 minutes of class time per subject per session. That is approximately 34 seconds of individual attention per student per session, if it were distributed perfectly equally. It is never distributed equally. The students who sit in the front, ask questions, and actively engage get significantly more. The students who sit quietly in the back, do not raise their hand, and do not stand out get significantly less.
The students who fall behind in a large batch fall behind quietly. By the time the gap is large enough to be visible - in mock test scores, in questions they cannot answer - months have passed and the gap has compounded.
In a large batch, the teacher teaches the syllabus. In a small batch, the teacher teaches the students.
This distinction sounds subtle. It produces very different outcomes.
What 25 Students Actually Means in Practice
When a Newton's Academy faculty member walks into a batch of 25 students, they know - specifically - before the class begins:
Which 4 or 5 students struggled with last week's chapter and will need an additional explanation or a different approach today.
Which 2 or 3 students are performing well on surface metrics but have a specific conceptual gap that will show up in JEE Advanced problems in 6 months if it is not addressed now.
Which student has been distracted for the past 2 weeks - not from the mock test scores, which are still acceptable, but from the quality of their class participation and the questions they are asking.
Which student's confidence has been growing - specifically - and needs to be challenged with harder problems before they plateau.
None of this is possible in a batch of 80. All of it is possible in a batch of 25. And all of it directly affects the outcome of every student's JEE, NEET, or MHT-CET preparation.
The Student Who Almost Didn't Make It
We will not use a name here - but this is a true story from our coaching history in Mulund West.
A student joined our JEE batch in Class 11. In the first 3 months, their mock test scores were decent - not spectacular, but not alarming. In a large batch, this student would have been invisible. Unremarkable. Getting through.
In our batch of 30, our Physics faculty noticed something specific: this student could solve standard problems correctly but consistently made a particular type of error in multi-step problems - not a knowledge error, but a reasoning error that suggested they were skipping a mental step that most students make explicitly. The error was consistent across different chapters, which meant it was not a chapter-specific gap but a thinking pattern.
We addressed it specifically. Not in a general class revision - in a dedicated one-on-one conversation about how this student was approaching multi-step problems, and why one specific mental step they were skipping was costing them marks.
The change was dramatic. Within 2 months, the mock test scores improved significantly. By Class 12, this student was among the top performers in the batch. They qualified JEE Advanced.
In a batch of 80 - that specific error, in that specific student, would never have been noticed. It would have shown up as a mediocre JEE result, and the student and their family would never have known exactly why.
The Business Case We Chose Not to Make
We are aware that there is a straightforward financial argument for larger batches. More students paying the same fees equals more revenue. Coaching institutes that run batches of 80 or 100 students charge similar or higher fees than we do and have significantly higher margins per batch.
We have never found this argument compelling - not because we don't understand business economics, but because we believe it optimizes for the wrong thing.
Our model is built on a simple long-term logic: students who get genuine results recommend Newton's Academy to other students and families in Mulund. Students who pay the same fees but get the result they would have gotten anywhere - because the coaching was generic and the attention was minimal - do not recommend us. They simply move on.
12 years in Mulund West have validated this logic. The majority of our new admissions come from referrals - from parents who tell other parents, from students who tell their friends, from alumni who come back to enroll younger siblings.
This referral network is built entirely on one thing: the belief that at Newton's Academy, your child will be known, not just enrolled.
That belief requires us to keep batches small. And so we do.
What Happens When We Turn Students Away
This is the part that is genuinely difficult.
When a motivated student comes to Newton's Academy and wants to join a JEE or NEET batch that is full - we turn them away. Politely. With a recommendation for a batch that is available, or a suggestion to join the next available opening.
We know that some of these students go to other institutes. Some of them do well there. Some of them come back to us the following year, or for the dropper batch, or to enroll a sibling.
We have never second-guessed the decision. The alternative - adding seats to accommodate everyone who wants to join - would gradually turn Newton's Academy into something indistinguishable from every other coaching institute in Mulund. And the thing that makes us different - the genuine knowledge of every student, the specific attention, the personal investment in each one's outcome - would disappear.
Some things cannot scale without being destroyed. Personal attention is one of them.
What This Means for You - If You Are Considering Newton's Academy
If you are a student or parent in Mulund West who is reading this and considering joining Newton's Academy - there are a few things you should know.
Our batches fill up. Every year - after SSC results, after FYJC admissions, in the first weeks of Class 11 - our JEE, NEET, and MHT-CET batches fill. If you wait too long to enquire, the batch you want may not have space.
We do not add seats when batches are full. If we tell you a batch is full, it is genuinely full. We will tell you when the next batch opens, or whether there is space in an alternate time slot.
What you get in a batch of 30 at Newton's Academy is not a premium version of what you get at a large institute. It is a fundamentally different experience - one where your child is known, tracked, and genuinely invested in by the faculty who teaches them.
That is what small batches make possible. And that is why we have never compromised on it - not in 2014, not today, not ever.
Come Visit Us
If you would like to see Newton's Academy before you decide - come in. Walk through the classroom. See the batch size for yourself. Talk to our faculty.
We believe you will feel the difference between a place where students are enrolled and a place where students are known.
📞 Call or WhatsApp: 73042 34055 📍 Newton's Academy | 1st Floor, Shrinivas Building, Opposite Kothari Farsan, Zaver Road, Mulund West, Mumbai – 400080 🌐 newtonsacademy.com
Walk in anytime - no appointment needed.
Since 2014 | Newton's Academy, Mulund West JEE | NEET | MHT-CET | Science 11th & 12th | Foundation 8th–10th | School Section CBSE ICSE SSC
Also Read: 10 Things Every Newton's Academy Student Learns That No Textbook Teaches
