My university in the United States is by no means prestigious. It is not the most highly regarded in my state, nor does it top any national rankings. I'm still proud to say that it's a solid university, one that can offer a rigorous education to those students who seek it out. However, we all want the highest level of education we've achieved to be from the most esteemed institution. It makes little sense to attend an Ivy League university for undergraduate and move to a public state college to pursue one's graduate degree. Had I applied to graduate schools in the United States, I would have made a move designed to increase my upward mobility. The same logic applied when I made my decision to go to France, except the stakes were a bit higher.
My friends from SKEMA had impressed upon me over and over that without a sufficiently illustrious school on one's résumé, a student may have a very hard time finding a job or internship. I assumed that these difficulties would only be compounded by the fact that I was a foreigner with nowhere near a native level of French. It was therefore of paramount importance that I find a school whose name was worth my investment of a few years and a significant amount of euros. It's discouraging to reduce the significance of an education to just a name, but part of moving to France was learning to play by different rules.
Let's take a look at the playing field; this graph from L'Etudiant is a good place for us to start. It plots the "Academic Excellence" (Y-axis) of a given French business school against its "Recognition by Companies" (X-axis). As you can see, the upper-right corner contains the five schools which constitute the "Elite" category, three of which are SAI application members: HEC, ESCP Europe, EM Lyon (no longer ordered alphabetically, but by prestige). ESSEC and EDHEC, the final two schools to round out the "Elite", unfortunately choose not to participate in the SAI application, as convenient as it would be for us to apply to all five of the "Elite" schools at once. Instead, the two remaining SAI application members, Audencia Nantes and SKEMA, find themselves near the top of the next cluster of schools, the "Not-to-be-missed" (a slightly awkward translation from "Les Incontournables").
At the risk of sounding as pretentious as the French recruiters who perpetuate this outmoded pecking order, I would have to admit that had I been only accepted at Audencia or SKEMA, I would probably have given them a miss. This is certainly not to say that there's anything wrong with either of these schools, au contraire. However, I thought that as I'd already be fighting against an innate disadvantage, I needed to submit to the inevitability of name-dropping and place myself as high up the food chain as I could manage.
Business schools only tell us a little less than half the story of les grandes écoles. Les grandes écoles are not quite universities. With exceptions in fields such as law and medicine, the universities in France are essentially open to the general public, lacking such crude trappings as tuition or entrance standards. They teach all manner of the humanities and sciences (soft and hard). Les grandes écoles exist as counterparties to the universities, principally in the fields of engineering and management. Admission is usually dependent upon completion of two years of grueling classes préparatoires and equally arduous entrance examinations.
A foreigner accepted into any of the five schools that participate in the SAI can rightfully say that they have entered the ranks of les grandes écoles, but we'll see later on that this alone doesn't give us quite the same claim to bragging rights as those who have gone through the French selection process.
Du brouillard
View from classrooms in school building
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Service des Admissions Internationales (SAI)
For students from outside of France, the application process for SKEMA begins on the website of the Service des Admissions Internationales (SAI). I had heard several of my SKEMA friends lament the competitiveness and strict ranking system of the French business school environment, so I was surprised to see that SKEMA's application process was handled in conjunction with four other French business schools. Each applicant is given consideration at all five schools with only one application (similar to the Common Application in the U.S.)
The schools are (in unbiased, alphabetical order): Audencia Nantes, EM LYON, ESCP Europe, HEC, and SKEMA. Most students familiar with the system would find the idea of ordering the above schools alphabetically to be laughable, and would be able to quickly rattle off to you the immutable position of each of these schools in the all-important hierarchy. This hierarchy is important enough to deserve its own post at a later time.
The application process is not much different from those you will have seen before in the United States. Let's do a run-through, pretending that I will be applying for admission in September 2014. First, I create a login and password. I then select which admissions session I would prefer among four options. Autumn has passed, and the deadline for Winter is quite soon at January 15, so I choose Spring, with a deadline of March 7. Summer remains, with a deadline of April 22.
One of the first questions we are asked is to choose our reference school. Unless you are only applying to one school, this choice does not matter at all, as you will select the other schools you would like to be considered at later on the same page. I can't see any benefit to choosing only one school, even if you are think you're uninterested in some of the schools; choosing only one school does not result in getting quicker results nor does it grant you any special consideration. Plus, if you're paying the application fee anyway, at least fool yourself into thinking it's "cheaper" by getting a 5-for-1 deal!
The SAI requires one standardized test, but it is up to you whether you'd like to take the general GRE ($185) or the business-oriented GMAT ($250: of course it costs more than the GRE). Because my undergraduate education was in economics, I chose the GMAT. Consider it carefully when selecting which test you'll take; I believe this decision on the application is binding. This standardized test is considered by some to be the most arduous portion of the application, but instead I found the teacher recommendations to be the most difficult part. NC State is a large school (>34,000 students), and I unfortunately did not make much effort to stand out and personally engage with my professors during my time there. My academic recommendation letters ended up being written by two teachers who had only ever heard me speak a couple sentences each.
There is some conflicting information about which oral interview centers are available in the United States. One list says that only New York and San Francisco (the French tend to love San Francisco) are possible testing locations, while the drop-down box on the application page says that Los Angeles and Miami are also viable choices. In any case, let's hope you don't happen to live in Kinsley or Lebanon, KS. If by some chance you do, this is a fantastic excuse to visit the big city. Being on the East Coast already, I chose New York. More on the interview in a later post.
I would estimate that the rest of the application can easily be done in a couple of hours and then submitted. The most time-consuming part will be amassing all of the required documents. The list is as follows:
A document proving your identity
Your degree certificate(s) (If you haven't graduated yet, ignore this)
Your enrollment verification certificate (I got it from my school's Registration & Records dept)
Your academic transcripts
Your resume
2 academic recommendation letters
The SAI selection’s payment page
The bank transfer voucher or the bank card invoice
The schools are (in unbiased, alphabetical order): Audencia Nantes, EM LYON, ESCP Europe, HEC, and SKEMA. Most students familiar with the system would find the idea of ordering the above schools alphabetically to be laughable, and would be able to quickly rattle off to you the immutable position of each of these schools in the all-important hierarchy. This hierarchy is important enough to deserve its own post at a later time.
The application process is not much different from those you will have seen before in the United States. Let's do a run-through, pretending that I will be applying for admission in September 2014. First, I create a login and password. I then select which admissions session I would prefer among four options. Autumn has passed, and the deadline for Winter is quite soon at January 15, so I choose Spring, with a deadline of March 7. Summer remains, with a deadline of April 22.
One of the first questions we are asked is to choose our reference school. Unless you are only applying to one school, this choice does not matter at all, as you will select the other schools you would like to be considered at later on the same page. I can't see any benefit to choosing only one school, even if you are think you're uninterested in some of the schools; choosing only one school does not result in getting quicker results nor does it grant you any special consideration. Plus, if you're paying the application fee anyway, at least fool yourself into thinking it's "cheaper" by getting a 5-for-1 deal!
The SAI requires one standardized test, but it is up to you whether you'd like to take the general GRE ($185) or the business-oriented GMAT ($250: of course it costs more than the GRE). Because my undergraduate education was in economics, I chose the GMAT. Consider it carefully when selecting which test you'll take; I believe this decision on the application is binding. This standardized test is considered by some to be the most arduous portion of the application, but instead I found the teacher recommendations to be the most difficult part. NC State is a large school (>34,000 students), and I unfortunately did not make much effort to stand out and personally engage with my professors during my time there. My academic recommendation letters ended up being written by two teachers who had only ever heard me speak a couple sentences each.
There is some conflicting information about which oral interview centers are available in the United States. One list says that only New York and San Francisco (the French tend to love San Francisco) are possible testing locations, while the drop-down box on the application page says that Los Angeles and Miami are also viable choices. In any case, let's hope you don't happen to live in Kinsley or Lebanon, KS. If by some chance you do, this is a fantastic excuse to visit the big city. Being on the East Coast already, I chose New York. More on the interview in a later post.
I would estimate that the rest of the application can easily be done in a couple of hours and then submitted. The most time-consuming part will be amassing all of the required documents. The list is as follows:
In addition to these documents, I answered between 3 and 5 short questions about my motivation in applying to the SAI. They were a joke. I was expecting to have to take some time to compose thoughtful responses, but it turns out that each of the answers was limited to 500 characters. Not 500 words, but characters. If we consider a mark of good writing to be the ability to convey meaning in the most concise way possible, then perhaps this is a challenge of sorts. This paragraph is 500 characters.
The next step is to pay the application fee, which is, as of Jan. 2014, 175€. This can be done by credit card or direct bank transfer. As an American, I would assume that credit card will be preferable for most of us.
This guide was indispensable when going through the application. The FAQ is also helpful. Everything was clearly laid out for me and at no point was I confused about the steps I needed to take. If you are accepted at and attend a French school, you will forfeit any right to or expectation of a clear administrative process once you arrive in France. From that day forward, all information will be confusing and conflicting, the regulations and processes will be infuriating, and logic and reason will be absent. Please, savor this while you still can.
The next step is to pay the application fee, which is, as of Jan. 2014, 175€. This can be done by credit card or direct bank transfer. As an American, I would assume that credit card will be preferable for most of us.
This guide was indispensable when going through the application. The FAQ is also helpful. Everything was clearly laid out for me and at no point was I confused about the steps I needed to take. If you are accepted at and attend a French school, you will forfeit any right to or expectation of a clear administrative process once you arrive in France. From that day forward, all information will be confusing and conflicting, the regulations and processes will be infuriating, and logic and reason will be absent. Please, savor this while you still can.
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