Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Classes Preparatoires aux Grandes Ecoles in France?

Is anyone here studying at one? Did anyone ever attempt to apply?

I guess we could just use this thread to talk about the application process, the classes prepas, the grandes ecoles, and anything related to that! So, post away. Would be great to know of other people on here who are interested in that.

---

Now, I have some problems with the application myself.

Having done A-Levels, I'm having a really hard time filling out the section on my educational background. There's an option which asks what kind of high school diploma I have. So, I picked the option which says "foreign diploma equivalent to the French baccalaureate."

So, it should have worked fine, but now on that same page, I am being asked if I did a "Science, general, international, professional, etc." baccalaureate, and irrespective of what I choose, there's a list of subjects and I have to put my grades there. Now, I chose an option which says that the grading system is with letters, but even then, I can't proceed because when I click on "enregistrer", I get an error which says that the grades should be between 0 and 20.

That's one problem. Second problem is that the academic calender here starts in January. And when they asked what I did in say, 2009/2010, I just answered O-Levels, when in fact, I had already started A-Levels in Jan 2010! I also tried doing the IB but left after a few months. I think I should just put this in a section called "extra information" and explain the whole thing.

---

Anyway, please post! I look forward to hearing from fellow applicants or current students.

Reply 1

xmarilynx

Just calculate your UMS scores to see what that works out as out of 20 :dontknow:

Reply 2

username839699

Original post by xmarilynx

Just calculate your UMS scores to see what that works out as out of 20 :dontknow:

Some UK universities consider AAA to be 16/20, and then for every grade dropped, one point is dropped. (i.e, AAB = 15)

With this scale, I should have 12/20. I guess I can just do that, and then see if there's an "additional info" section where I can explain what I did?

Sidenote: My French used to be close to the C1 level, but I'm afraid it's nowhere near that now. Just years of using as little French as I could. How did you get your French to a good level enough?

I can understand close to everything I hear or read. My reading is fine as well. On that front, it's as good as my English. But, when it comes to speaking or writing, I have some trouble. I find myself trying hard to look for the right words, and when I Google Translate it, I realise that I knew the word all along, but just couldn't remember it! Or wondering whether I spelled something correctly. For example, 'literature' in French, having the accent aigu and the extra 't'.

My initial plan was just to try write 500 words in French everyday. Just about anything, ranging from a little story to what I did during the day, or a grocery list. I also have 3 of the Bescherelle books (grammaire, ortographe, et conjugaison) which I was gonna attempt to work through. At least, for "grammaire."

http://www.bescherelle.com/cat_fiche.php?id_article=376902&id_serie=

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 3

username839699

Original post by xmarilynx

Just calculate your UMS scores to see what that works out as out of 20 :dontknow:

I tried to work something out. I don't even know if I did the math right...

Ok, AAA = 16. So, an 'A' = 16. BBB = 13. So, a B = 13.

I also know that BBC = 12.

So, (13 + 13 + C)/3 = 12

So, C = 10.

Does that make sense? I could just plug in those numbers. Then, explicitly tell them my A-Level and O-Level (GCSE) grades elsewhere.

Reply 4

marseille_h

Hi,

My elder brother had a french education in France and did Classe preparatoires aux grandes ecoles, just for people who are applying should know that is not like going to uni in UK, you are actually preparing for an exam after 2years of study to then join a uni (grandes ecoles).

It is very competitive, I know that based on your first year results the top students go to Prepa etoile (prepa star) which work on a higher speed than the others and are applying for the top ecoles. And you can get kicked off if your first year results are good enough. But if you are hard worker it is excellent once you are in a grande ecole.

Hope my message helped some who don't know much about it.