How We Rank Mentors

• No mentor can pay to appear higher in any list, and no position in any list is sold.
• We charge mentors nothing to be listed, and there is no subscription that changes where a mentor appears.
• No list is ordered by anything a mentor pays us or anything we pay a mentor.

A mentor is listed once their profile is complete and public and their account is in good standing. Being listed does not depend on any payment.

Unless you choose another order, mentors are listed by the factors below, in this order of importance. Each factor is used only to separate mentors who are level on every factor above it.

1. Average rating. The most important factor. It decides the order on its own whenever two mentors' ratings differ. The average of the star ratings students have given the mentor in published reviews after a session. A mentor with no rating yet comes after every mentor who has one.
2. Sessions completed. Second. Used only between mentors with exactly the same average rating. How many sessions the mentor has completed on SarthiLink. Trial sessions are not counted. More completed sessions come first.
3. Reliability. Third, and only a tie-breaker. Used only between mentors level on both factors above, and only while reliability scoring is switched on. Whether the mentor's recent record shows missed or cancelled sessions. A mentor with such a record comes after one without; a mentor with no record yet counts as reliable. It never lifts a lower-rated mentor above a higher-rated one.

Mentors who are still level after every factor are placed in a fixed internal order, so that moving between pages never repeats or skips anyone. That order does not depend on anything a mentor does or pays.

These are shown on cards or profiles but are never used to order a list: the mentor's tier badge, performance level, the number of followers, founding status, growth badges, any verification status, past or present.

The search box and the filters (subject, language, price range, experience and so on) only decide WHO is shown. They do not change the order: the people they leave in are listed in the order you chose.

• Most relevant: The default order, explained above.
• Highest rated: Highest average rating first; between equal ratings, the mentor with more reviews first; then reliability, as a tie-breaker only, while reliability scoring is on.
• Most sessions completed: Most completed sessions first; between equal counts, the higher average rating first.
• Most experienced: Most years of experience shown on the profile first; mentors who show none come last; between equal years, the higher average rating first.
• Lowest session price: Lowest session price first; mentors with no price shown come last; equal prices in name order.
• Highest session price: Highest session price first; mentors with no price shown come last; equal prices in name order.
• Newest: The mentors who joined most recently first.
• Alphabetical (A–Z): By the mentor's name, A to Z.
• Lowest program price: By the lowest price of the mentor's published programmes; mentors with none come last; equal prices in name order.
• Most program sessions: By the largest number of sessions in the mentor's published programmes; mentors with none come last; then the higher average rating.

• the mentor directory (“Find your UPSC mentor”), in the order you choose — the default order unless you pick another;
• the “Meet your mentors” section on the home page, which shows the first mentors in the default order;
• the pages for a single kind of help, such as motivation and strategy, which use the same orders;
• the Following tab of the directory, which uses the same orders for the mentors you follow.

Questions about how a list was ordered can be raised through our Grievance Redressal Policy.