Grande école

A grande école (ɡʁɑ̃d ekɔl; great school) is a specialized top level educational institution in France. Grandes écoles are part of an alternative educational system that operates alongside the mainstream French public university system and are dedicated to teaching, research and professional training in single academic fields such as engineering, architecture, business administration, academic research, or public policy and administration. Grandes écoles admit students through a highly selective examination process, hence a significant portion of their graduates obtains influential roles in French business, academia, civil service and civil society. Grandes écoles primarily admit students based on their national ranking in written and oral exams called concours, which are organized annually by the French Ministry of Education. While anyone can register for concours, successful candidates have almost always completed two or three years of dedicated preparatory classes (classes préparatoires) prior to admission. Grandes écoles are generally publicly funded and therefore have limited tuition costs. Some, especially business schools (Écoles de commerce), are organised privately and therefore have more costly tuition. The term grande école originated in 1794 after the French Revolution, when the National Convention created the École normale supérieure, the mathematician Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot created the École centrale des travaux publics (later the École polytechnique), and the abbot Henri Grégoire created the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. The model was probably the military academy at Mézières, of which Monge was an alumnus. The selective admission opens up to higher education based on academic merit. Some schools included in the category have roots in the 17th and 18th centuries and are older than the term grande école, which dates to 1794.