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Grande école

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For the film released in 2004, see Grande École (film).

The Grandes Écoles (French: grand schools) of France are higher education establishments outside the mainstream framework of the public universities. They are generally focused on a single subject area, such as engineering, research, business or administration, have a moderate size, and are highly selective in their admission of students. Some of them (École Polytechnique, École Normale Supérieure, École Nationale d'Administration, École Centrale, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Ponts et Chaussées, Supélec, HEC, ESCP-EAP, ESSEC...) are highly prestigious, providing similar status to their graduates in France as Oxbridge in the UK or the Ivy League schools in the US. They are truly elitist: About 0.5% of French high school students nationwide are accepted, fewer than 4,000 students graduate from them every year. This dozen of schools, which the French praise for being "généralistes", i.e., interdisciplinary, have traditionally produced most of France's high ranking civil servants, politicians, executives, scientists and philosophers.

Some of them like ESSEC (Paris, Singapore), ESCP-EAP European School of Management (Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid, Torino), or the Écoles Centrales (Paris, Lyon, Lille, Nantes, Marseilles, Beijing) go beyond French borders and have established campuses internationally thus gaining global recognition.

Please note that many students from these schools are very touchy about the following lists and debate hotly about their ranking. In this article, they are given as an indication, not as a fixed hierarchy.

Preparatory Classes

The Lycée Louis-le-Grand, in Paris, is one of the most famous lycées providing classes for preparing for grandes écoles. (Here, on the right side of the rue St Jacques; on the left, the Sorbonne.)

In most cases, Grandes Écoles recruit students not after the end of their high school, but after two or more years of initial higher education. For the most part, this education takes place in special preparatory classes, known as Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles (CPGE) or Prépas, that dispense undergraduate university-level education at an accelerated pace. Prépas are located in a number of select high schools throughout the country; some of them, such as Henri IV, Louis-le-Grand, are very selective and successful at placing students into the top schools.

There are five main categories of Prépas:

Grandes Écoles can be classified into several broad categories:

Écoles Normales Supérieures

These schools train researchers, professors and may also be a starting point for executive careers in the public administration or business. There are four of them:

Their competitive entrance exams are considered to be extremely selective, specially the École Normale Supérieure. They recruit mainly from Taupes, biology Prépas and Khâgnes, even though a small number of their students (less than 10 each year) are recruited separately on the basis of highly selective exams.

Unlike most of the other Grandes Écoles, the Écoles Normales Supérieures (ENS) do not award any specific diplomas (students who have completed the curriculum they agreed to with the office of the Dean upon arrival are entitled to be known as "ENS Alumni" or "Anciens Élèves de l'École Normale Supérieure"), but encourage their students to obtain university diplomas in partner institutions whilst providing extra classes and support. In the future there could be diploma after 4 years in the school. Many ENS students obtain more than one university diploma.

The Normaliens, as the students of the several ENS are known, attain a high level of excellence in the various disciplines in which they are trained. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training, and as such paid a monthly salary, in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years, including those of their studies.

École Nationale des Chartes

The school's main purpose is to provide archivists and paleographers, but students are also trained to become academic and other professional historians, library curators and, more broadly, high-level executives of the Ministry of Culture.

The competitive entrance exams are about the most selective as the school typically enroll less than 30 students each year, making it the Grande École with the smallest number of students. The competitive entrance exams are split into two ways sorting the students by their speciality between the classical A way focused on medieval history and modern history and for which students are trained in Prepa Chartes, and the modern B way focused on modern and contemporary history and which is open to student in Khâgnes.

The students, known as Chartistes, are granted a diploma of Archivist-Paleographer at the end of their 4 years of training, along with the other university diploma that most of the student acquire during their training. The Chartistes keep a level of excellence in History, Archival science and Library science. Their reputation is so broad that many alumni of the École des Chartes are found serving in as archivist in foreign countries or in international organizations. The school also train a small number of foreign students each year.

Quite like Normaliens the students at the École Nationale des Chartes are considered civil servants in training, and as such paid a monthly salary, in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years.

Grandes Écoles d'Ingénieurs (Engineering Schools)

There is a broad spectrum of engineering schools, many recruiting after taupes. Things may be a bit confusing since many schools have a lengthy official name (often beginning with École Nationale Supérieure), a shortened name, an acronym and, for the most famous, a nickname (and often a nickname for their students).


Other Grandes Ecoles (non-exhaustive list)

Grandes Écoles de Commerce (Management Schools )

Most French business schools are semi-privately run, often by the regional chambers of commerce.

The most prestigious and selective Management schools are the three "Parisiennes" [[1]], [[2]], [[3]], located in the Paris Metropolitan area. There has been talk of merging the three schools in order to give them a higher international visibility [FinancialTime]. Other schools are found outside Paris, some highly selective, and sometimes compared to the three parisians (such as Lyon):

The "Parisiennes"

Outside Paris (non-exhaustive list)

Grandes Écoles without Preparatory Classes

Some schools are accessible after a competitive entrance exam directly after the Baccalauréat. They remain highly selective and extremely prestigious in French society, with most former students holding high-ranking positions in the public and private sectors. Often, students of these schools will go on and enter an administrative school, for which they are better prepared than the former university students. These schools include (non-exhaustive list):

Administrative Schools

These schools train students for certain civil service and other public-sector positions. However, some students who undertake studies in these schools do end up working in the private sector. All theses schools are very selective. As an example, the most selective one is the Ecole Nationale du Patrimoine, which enrolls about 1.5% of its candidates (who already hold a minimum of a master's degree). The ENA is certainly the most famous one, with a large cohort of alumni joining the government and cabinets. On top of their initial studies, most students follow a one year dedicated training course to succeed (IEJs - Instituts d'Études Judiciaires, see french law schools -, IEPs - Instituts d'Étude Politiques see Sciences Po - or dedicated programs)

  • École Nationale d'Administration (ENA), whose alumni are known as énarques and generally take up high-level positions in government;
  • École Nationale de la Magistrature ( ENM ), which trains magistrates;
  • École Nationale des Impôts ( ENI ), which translates as "National Tax School";
  • École Nationale du Patrimoine ( [4] ), which trains curators;
  • École Nationale de Police ( ENSP ), ie national police force school;

Military Officer Academies

While École Polytechnique, also known as X is run by the Ministry of Defence and its French students are reserve officers in training, it is no longer formally denominated as a military academy. A small number of its students do however embrace a military career afterwards. A large proportion of its students end up working for the State's technical administrations.


See also

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