Choosing a hostel for a coaching student: a checklist for parents

Summary: Visit in person, at a normal time of day. Check safety and supervision first, then the study routine, food, health arrangements and the daily commute. Ask how phones are handled and who you call at 11 p.m. if something goes wrong.

Why the hostel matters so much

A JEE or NEET student spends perhaps six to eight hours in class. The other sixteen hours happen in and around the hostel: sleeping, eating, self-study, travel, and a lot of time with the other students on the floor. A good classroom can be undone by a hostel where lights go off at 1 a.m., the food makes children ill, or nobody notices that a student has stopped attending class.

Parents often choose on the basis of the room and the price. Those matter, but in our experience the questions that decide how a child does are about routine and supervision.

Before you visit

• Ask for the hostel's written rules, charges and refund policy. If they will not give these in writing, treat that as a warning.
• Find out who runs it: the coaching institute, the school, or a private owner. Ask who is responsible if something goes wrong.
• Talk to a parent whose child stayed there last year, if you can find one through the institute or your own contacts.
• Check the distance to the coaching centre and the school, and how the student will travel at 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The checklist for the visit

Go at an ordinary time, for example on a weekday evening, rather than at a fixed appointment when everything has been tidied. Take this list with you.

Safety

• Separate buildings or secured floors for boys and girls, with female staff for girls' hostels
• A warden who lives on the premises, and a named person on duty at night
• A register or system for entry and exit, and a clear rule about visitors
• CCTV in common areas and entrances (not in rooms)
• Fire extinguishers that have been serviced, clear exits and no locked emergency doors
• Grills or safety on high windows and balconies
• A written policy on ragging and bullying, and who a child can complain to

Supervision and study

• Fixed study hours in the evening, and whether anyone checks that students are studying
• A quiet place to study other than the bed: a desk in the room or a supervised study hall
• Lights-out time, and whether it is enforced
• How attendance at coaching and school is tracked, and whether parents are told if a child misses class
• The phone policy. Unlimited phone use in a hostel room is the single biggest drain on a teenager's study time that we see.

Food and health

• See the kitchen, and eat one meal there yourself
• Ask for the weekly menu, and check it has dal, vegetables, fruit or milk every day
• Filtered drinking water that is maintained
• A tie-up with a nearby doctor or clinic, and what happens if a child falls ill at night
• Whether someone makes sure an unwell child eats and takes medicines

Room and facilities

• How many students share a room. Two or three is manageable; six in a room makes studying hard.
• Clean bathrooms, and how often they are cleaned
• Laundry arrangement
• Reliable power backup, since evening study depends on it
• A lockable cupboard for each student

A simple scoring sheet

If you are comparing two or three hostels, score each out of 5 on these points and add them up. Give safety and supervision double weight, because they are the hardest to fix once the year has started.

For example, a hostel that scores 4 on safety, 3 on study hours and 4 on everything else gets (4 × 2) + (3 × 2) + (4 × 5) = 34 out of 45. The total matters less than the lowest scores: a hostel with a 2 on safety should drop off your list whatever its total.

Travel time is study time lost

Parents underestimate this. A student who spends 45 minutes each way between hostel and coaching loses an hour and a half a day, which adds up to more than 500 hours over two years. Add a separate trip to school and the day is gone. A hostel within walking distance of class gives those hours back for sleep and revision.

Questions to ask the warden

1. Who do I call at 11 p.m. if I cannot reach my child?
2. What happens if a student is found with a phone during study hours?
3. How many students left the hostel mid-year last year, and why?
4. How are complaints between roommates handled?
5. Can I see the rooms that will be allotted, rather than a sample room?
6. How often will I get an update on attendance and conduct?

Pay attention to how the questions are answered. A warden who answers calmly and specifically is usually running a tighter hostel than one who says "Don't worry, everything is taken care of."

The first month

Homesickness is normal for the first three or four weeks. Most students settle once they have a routine and a couple of friends. Try not to visit every weekend in the first month, and keep phone calls to a fixed time each day so they do not break up study hours.

Watch for these signs that the hostel itself may be the problem: repeated stomach upsets, complaints about the same roommate or senior, not sleeping because of noise, or a sudden fall in attendance. Raise them with the warden early. If you want a broader sense of how to tell ordinary homesickness from real distress, our article on exam stress signs may help.

Our own hostel is under one roof, and students follow a supervised 11-hour day with no phones. You can read how it works on the hostel page, and the questions above apply to us as much as to anyone else.

Common questions