Can someone explain the difference between the Ecoles and Universities in light of the following correspondence. Several years ago I was at a dinner with a French prof. and he said somethings about French Ecoles vrs. Univ. that surprised me---very different than what I assumed, that like most countries that universities were the primary and top education level. I did not get a chance to resolve all my questions and I find that US and even non-French academics in Europe seem to understand it well enough to clarify. I sent the following to a US prof. who forwarded it to Monique Jeanblanc who responded. I first state what I had found about the differences and speculations as to further differences. Monique Jeanblanc responed and confirmed most of what I thought but not completely. The link immediately following shows HEC as a top Ecole but they DO offer a PhD. Is that because they and possibly other Ecoles have a business school division that offers PhDs even though the Ecole in itself, as a more technical school does not----i.e. are French business schools even if associated with Ecoles more like US business schools that are within but consider themself somehow separate ? Do Ecoles even offer Masters degrees ? Thanks. This is a link to the best source I found. Note atthe top of the second columns, it describes HEC as anEcole. http://www.understandfrance.org/France/ ... e104317But in contrast to what the French profs. below say,at http://www.hec.fr/hec/eng/index.html you see in theheadings 'Ecole' and PhD. Also atwww.essec.edu/business-school-paris-program/doctoral-program/phdyou see they offer a PhD [I did not see indication ofit being an Ecole. It sounds like there at leastthree types of schools, Ecole, University and BusinessSchools with the last two offering PhD and perhaps HECis part of an Ecole but the graduate level ??=============================Hi Tom,In Science, the best under graduate students go tograndes ecoles aftersucceeding entrance exams.Some of these ecoles are free, sometimes students areeven paid (in the topones: Ecole Polytechnique andEcoles Normales Superieures), there are fees for theother ones.University is free (except for social insurance costs,about 300 euros ayear).At the graduate level there are only universities(grandes ecoles cannotdeliver PhDs),so students from grandes ecoles come to university ifthey want to make aPhD (which is not useful to get a job in theindustry).Also, only few undergraduate university studentspursue a PhD.Best,Monique et Stéphane

that is correct, there is a two way system. the university system resembles that in other countries, with the important exception that most universitiesadmit students de facto and most universities are dumps (i.e. poor). the ecolesystem, infinitely more prestigious, is one in which students must take two to three years preparatory class training in order to sit a set of ranked competitive entrance exams which in turn lead or not to the admission to a set of schools which are supposedly strictly ranked in quality (as are the people that graduated from these schools). It is fair to say that pople with prep class and ecole training have on the average good undergraduate problem solving skills, hence the interest of british headhuntersfor these candidates. Historically, with the exceptions of the ENS, French ecoles did not offer PhD programs.In a global world however, many french schools have been forced to come to the realization that an artificially imposed ranking of the school justified by the quality of the selected studentship admitted to a particular school is not enough to competeon the world scene. This has lead to the introduction of PhD programs, the establishment of cross-links among schools and the usual bag of PR tricks.

jfuqua,unkpath's explanations are correct. I will try to add a few more points.The following are general rules, not totalitarian truths, ie. there are exceptions, but I will not bother stating the latter for any attempt to give a fully comprehensive description of the French education system is likely to fail.1) Grandes Ecoles deliver Master's degrees.2) they have a competitive entrance exam (contrary to Universities)3) When refering to Grandes Ecoles (literally "great schools"), most people mean Ecoles d'Ingenieur ("engineering schools") or Ecoles de Commerce ("business schools"), although there are plenty of others (specialised in areas like Fine Arts, Law, Political Science, Agronomy, Public Management...etc)4) Traditionally, Grandes Ecoles were not qualified to deliver PhDs, only Universities were. However, some Ecoles have recently managed to acquire the right to deliver PhDs, or have launched partnerships with Universities in order to "jointly" deliver PhDs.5) HEC is an Ecole de Commerce ("business school"), generally considered to be the top of its kind in France. A few years ago, there was a big debate as to whether French Ecoles de Commerce ("business schools") should be considered as Business Schools (without the quotes), and whether the Master's degree they delivered was an MBA or not. It was academically a Master's degree and it was a business/management degree for sure, but the students were not your typical MBA students since they did not have any work experience. I understand things have changed now: their degree is less academic and more professional, students are required to take long-term internships (up to 2 years in total during the curriculum I believe) so they are about 25/26 years old by the time they graduate, and it is therefore probably fair to say Ecoles de Commerce's Master's degrees are today pretty close to MBAs.

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Thank you all for your comments. I think I have a much better idea now. One of the reasons I was so confused at the start was I knew of so many famous academicians in the French University system [e.g. Marc Yor] that I found it strange all the comparatively bad about the universities vrs. ecoles. I don't think any of you said this but I get the impression that in the universities the 'great profs' may not actually spend too much time with the students---they are 'researchers.' In America that is also true in the largest universities esp. in the sciences where the profs. have to get grants for work [which takes alot of time] and they may not teach much---the title may say professor but they are more researchers. Non-sciences have more faculty teaching a normal load but at top universities that may be one or two course per quarter vrs. three or four at less universities [public or private], though there are a number of very famous/good profs. who teach because they like student involvement. Yes in the U.S. grad. and post-docs are often treated as 'lab rats' and given work the profs. don't want to do [goffers]. There have been a number of cases of physical and psychological abuse and at some universities grad [post-doc ?] have tried to form unions.