Admis — Accepted

Getting into a French university

French higher education has two worlds side by side. The universities are public, open and inexpensive, and most students attend them. The grandes écoles, such as engineering and business schools and the École normale supérieure, are small and selective, and most are entered after two years of intensive preparatory classes, the classes préparatoires, and a concours, a competitive exam with a fixed number of places. Many French people still treat the grandes écoles as the elite route, and the distinction shapes careers for life. University degrees follow the European pattern: the licence after three years, the master after two more, then the doctorat. For years, a licence gave a near-automatic right to continue, but selection now takes place at entry to the master's, and popular programs receive far more applications than they have places. Applicants with a foreign degree are usually assessed on a file: transcripts, a letter, and often a research proposal, as Alex's was. Waiting lists are common, and so are late places when someone withdraws. Fees are set nationally and are low by international standards. Since 2019, most students from outside the European Union have been charged a higher rate, although many universities exempt them, and the rules differ by program and change over time, so the university's own page is the source to trust. The agrégation, which Sophie mentions, is another world again: a national competitive exam that qualifies its winners to teach in lycées and some university posts, and that many French academics still treat as a mark of distinction. Alex will meet a student preparing it, and will hear about it more than he expects.