Grandes écoles

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Template:FrenchScientificResearch The grandes écoles (French: great 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, have a moderate size, and are often quite selective in their admission of students. They are highly prestigious, and traditionally have produced most of France's managing directors and executives.


Contents

Preparatory classes

Image:Rue St Jacques Louis Le Grand DSC09316.jpg
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 Louis-le-Grand and Henri IV in Paris, are famous in their own name.

There are four main categories of prépas:

There is some specific jargon in these classes. For instance, the students in mathématiques spéciales are called taupes (which could be roughly translated as the "moles") because, according to stereotypes, they wear glasses and never go out. Hence, the year of mathématiques spéciales is called the taupin, which could be translated in the context as the "mole hole". One integrates a school when one succeeds in passing the competitive exam to that school. If you are admitted to a school after two years of prépa, you are 3/2; if you repeat a year, you are 5/2. Indeed, the most prestigious engineering school in France is the École Polytechnique, often dubbed X, as the unknown variable in mathematics. The integral of X between 1 and 2 (the numbers representing years of study) is 3/2, and the integral between 2 and 3 is 5/2. Public preparatory classes do not admit 7/2s, outside of exceptional cases (illness...).

Categories

Grandes écoles can be classified into several broad categories:

Écoles normales supérieures

They train researchers, professors and may also be a starting point for high administrative careers. There are four of them:

Their competitive entrance exams are about the most selective. They recruit mostly from taupes, biology prépas and khâgnes.

The normaliens, as the students of the several ENS are known, keep a 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 studies.

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).

The engineering schools include :

The École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile (civilian air academy) also recruits taupins.

Biological and agricultural engineering

Business schools (Écoles de commerce)

French business schools are privately run, often by the regional chambers of commerce. The most prestigious are:

Then, several others are noteworthy, which include:

Military officer academies

While École Polytechnique is run by the Ministry of Defence and its French students are reserve officers in training, it is no longer a military academy and few of its students embrace a military career afterwards.

Political and administrative schools

These schools train students for certain civil service and other public-sector positions. However, many students who undertake studies in these schools do end up working in the private sector. It should be noted that some of the above engineering schools have special curricula for civil service training.

See also

External links

de:Grande école fr:Grande école ja:グランゼコール pl:Grandes Écoles

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