my source is this article: https://www.nouvelobs.com/idees/20221011.OBS64435/l-ambition-inegalitaire-d-alain-finkielkraut.html

I simply used Excel to build this chart.

It's incredible that in a country like France, Merit seems to be totally non existent.

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I'm just saying that there is no merit in France.

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Isn't admissions based on the prépas admissions exams? Or are you saying that there is some aspect of admissions based on legacies or other criteria?

Is there any further explanation or just a correlation? I am not aware of any lateral way of getting into these universities (i.e. via favors) and also to finish the careers.

It is well known/observed that children follow the footsteps of their parents.

Also, higher academic achievement of parents (and income) lead to better achieving children.

That said, this correlation information would work as supporting evidence.

Edit. I read the source. It is essentially about these topics, not that it is an "unfair" or "ilegal" access to universities, it is just that, because of the effect the parents have on the children, they fare better.

> noble family

…Didn’t they do a whole revolution to try to get away from having a landed aristocracy?

Admissions are based on prépas result, which is based only on merit, however if you have a clear objective of doing good in prépa and have parents that know how to succeed there helps a lot.

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Plus rich parents can shield you more effectively from life problems so you can focus on goals.

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I don't think it is more unfair than anything else in life.

Yes basically environmental influences sets the children on the course of the parents.

I suspect the effect is amplified by the parents teaching scientific facts and reasoning at a younger age as well as insisting on and supporting the children in learning science.

Should this not be posted in truth is ugly and depressing

Merit is a mere fiction used to sparkle guilt in the poor and confidence in the dominant classes of society.
As a kid with good grades, I didn't choose to have a stable, loving, caring family with a strong cultural capital, to be interested in reading, counting, learning, solving problems. I didn't choose to be a white kid in a privileged school.
A kid who has bad grades didn't choose that. Didn't choose their social and economical conditions, that their body resists staying silent on a chair 8h/day, to be plagued by dyslexia, to have hobbies that have nothing in common with what school teaches...
Now, as a teacher who reads a few studies, I've never been so sure that there is no such thing as "merit".

Also, If your parents attendet a school, htey know their way around. Meaning what the core ideas of that school are and therefore, applications, studyfocus, Präparation, Internships,... are probably much more focused.

ENA is not "a best university", it's basically a specialized school to be in the highest ranking public service careers tracks. One usually goes there if they pass the entrance exam, which is usually taken after obtaining at least a masters level degree.

The other ones on the list are business schools and engineering schools. I would say the "best" one here being polytechnique (engineering school). The entrance exam is merit based (maths and physics), but there is a socio-cultural bias as to who ends up succeeding (ie your parents taught you the right priorities during you schooling, and knew how to give you the best opportunities, which is obviously easier if they went through the process themselves.).

OP wrote Nobel, so I understood it as having a Nobel prize winning family name. :D

> Merit seems to be totally non existent.

I think that's a bit of an exaggerated extrapolation of your observation based on already treated data. Family backgrounds surely plays a definitive role but not in a way that affects merit, especially for engineering schools. The exams are tough and only the best succeed (ie merit). It's how one gets to be the best that's the problem, as mentioned above, the right family background will give you the right environment to succeed. However even if given that, you still suck at maths, no one will help you.

Family legacy is not an admission criteria, unlike some other countries. For those top schools, selection committees look at your grades at the exam and that's it. No need for weird ever lasting list of extracurriculars, or to know who your father is, or how much money they can donate.

Mdrrr … and now you just discovered birth inequalities. Pls don’t try to reassure you mon coquin

Are the chances equal between the sexes? Or are we assuming men since they are citing fathers? What about if it's the mother who went to Une Grande Ecole?

I'll be honest, this doesn't seem particularly telling one way or the other. If there was more data about family income/wealth, race, and sex, it might more sense.

As others have said, highly prestigious schools with specific admissions formulae are likely to produce alumni with the money and knowledge to help their kids also get into that school. It isn't totally fair, but unless the admissions specifically gives legacy students a greater chance, it's a more subtle pressure.

Certainly the difference between the schools based on legacy status seems somewhat suspect, however.

Actually the way 'Grandes Ecoles' select students leave particularly little room for nepotism.
It's indeed just a prime example of social reproduction.

"The other ones on the list are business schools and engineering schools."

Apart from the ENS which has produced nine Nobel prize winners in Physics and Chemistry. And a few more in economics and literature.

Hmm, yes, the great nobel families of France.

There's 2 different concepts you are merging. Merit and access to opportunity.

If I am hiring people based on intelligence and I hire the truly smartest person. That was a meritocratic selection.

If the person is the smartest because they were born to smart parents, got lots of academic support and an environment conductive to learning, that was unequal access to opportunity relative to other people.

A system can both be meritocratic and have a large disparity in access to opportunity, the concepts are totally orthogonal.

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The ENA is certainly not "the best" university, it is useful if you want to work in the government but that usually doesn't pay as well as comparable private sector jobs. If you want to make money X or HEC are way better.

Also the ENA doesn't exist anymore, it was closed down by the government in 2021.

And then there is my husband who did l’X coming from Villepinte 93. 25 years ago. From a blue collard family. Merit exists but it is harder for poor people to enter prépas and grandes Écoles due to budget/economics

It's still astounding than in our country that strives for more equality (it's in our words, after all), we have those incredibly high level schools, the cradle of our elite (supposedly), being such powerful instruments of social reproduction.

"What was all that one-in-a-million talk then?!"

Multiple revolutions, but France let the nobles keep their titles without the degree of power and influence they had before. In theory anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's the case in pretty much every country. You're way more likely to receive a good education from your parents if they're well-educated too.

At least we don't have institutionalized nepotism and corruption like they do in the US ( like Dean's list, "legacy" admissions, stuff like that). For instance it's well known that Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law, got into Harvard because his rich father donated a few million $ to them. And that's totally legal, which is insane. Colleges like X or HEC in France have tough entrance exams, and you can't buy your way in. Some people say entrance exams are biased but that's still the most fair way to choose people imo.

Yeah, "in theory". "In reality" seems to have become a different animal.

Names carry a lot of cachet regardless. Here's an article on how much influence French nobility still wield even though they technically have little legal standing in France:

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37655777

Also, parents knowing how positive of an impact it has on their long term careers and thus finance, will push twice as hard their children in that direction.

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Dean’s list in US in my experience (attended multiple public and private Unis in US) is not nepotism, just a list of the students with the best grades? Unlike legacy

I'd agree if the difference was 2X or even 10X, but 330X is outrageous. Plugging some numbers in shows how ridiculous these figures are. The 330X figure doesn't even make sense for a baseline acceptance rate greater than 1/330 = 0.3%, in which case the acceptance rate if your father attended would be 100%. More reasonable numbers would be 0.15% vs 50% or 0.075% vs 25%. Bottom line: either these numbers are wrong by a metric fuck-ton, or someone at ENA is pulling some strings. My guess is the former.

Edit: My Google machine tells me that the admission rate to ENA is 8%, so the 330X figure would be possible if at least 99.98% of admissions were legacy admissions.

I always thought that Sorbonne was the French equivalent of Oxford. But then I see that the acceptance rate is 100%. So what gives?

Sorry, but these numbers can't be right. They could only work if it was almost impossible for non-legacy students to get into these institutions.

What do you believe is nepotistic or corrupt about the “Dean’s List”?

Admissions are based on admission exams. No university is going to admit someone just because their daddy made a big donation to get their kids in.

Being from a family of ingénieurs, doctors or pilots doesn’t take any merit away. Kids get inspired by their parents, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they follow their parents footstep.

But yes, if you are from a family of pilots, you may have step ahead everyone else by being introduced to the field at a younger age. But you still have to put in the work required and just cannot coast along.

This is where the entrance exams come in to level the field as much as possible to give everyone a fair chance.

This graph is bullshit anyways with no source cited for the data, if misspelling of noble didn’t tell us that already. Poteau de merde.

Admissions are based on admission exams. No university is going to admit someone just because their daddy made a big donation to get their kids in.

Being from a family of ingénieurs, doctors or pilots doesn’t take any merit away. Kids get inspired by their parents, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they follow their parents footstep.

But yes, if you are from a family of pilots, you may have step ahead everyone else by being introduced to the field at a younger age. But you still have to put in the work required and just cannot coast along.

This is where the entrance exams come in to level the field as much as possible to give everyone a fair chance.

This graph is bullshit anyways with no source cited for the data, if misspelling of noble didn’t tell us that already. Poteau de merde.

my bad, overlooked ENS ..

It's equivalent mostly in terms of cultural significance (historical university etc..) . It's still one of the best university in France in terms of reputation and name recognition for a "university". Grandes écoles form a parallel track that gathers the best students due to a very selective and tough entrance process (2 years of intense preparation). Universities can still have great programs and do great research (and really smart students who didn't want to do the Prépa), but there is a certain little extra for having gone to a grande école.

Now, apart from some programs at specific universities, there is not much difference in universities in France at undergraduate level, acceptance is high because getting the French baccalaureate (high school diploma) guarantees access to universities. With the new system it might not be your first choice program, though before that meant basically a 100% acceptance rate at undergraduate level (this needs to be updated). Selection happens throughout the course as people drop out or fail exams. The stats were quite telling before.

Also, because there is not much difference between unis, people tend to go to whatever was closest to home for undergraduate studies.

I suppose the 330x is in comparison with a random person in the country, it seems logical that a son of someone that didn’t went to something like the X will be less likely to be interested in longer studies

Stripping nobility of their political privileges while letting them keep their wealth effectively amounts to nothing; the former noblemen simply become the top players of the capitalist game.

Just so you know, ENA is not the best university in France, very influencial in politics but that's all it is. Proof by results, all our presidents went at ENA since 50 years and here we are, on a steady decline. "But they became president hurr durr" of course, because it is a puppet manufactory. ENA produces a mafia holding the state power for their friends in private companies, and we French people, elect them.

Also this post illustrate how bullshit are our own values for the french people itself : Liberté🗽, Égalité⚖️, Fraternité👥️️

I like being french because it is worse in most countries around the world. I also hate being french because it is fundamentaly working like everywhere around the world, with beautiful words masking the reality of our corrupted republic.

It was renamed. It still exist and work the same way. Now the name is INSP and it will reproduce the same thing, as ENA did.

Note: ENA does not happen on the same level as the others. All of the above but ENA are post bac (post prepa of course) entry exams. ENA exam is after you’ve done a grande école like Ulm or SPo. This might affect the qualitative results of the survey not displayed here in the quantitative as it narrows the pool of candidates and their backgrounds. The data might be correct but this specific École does not deal with the same level playing field as the others, as they are modes of preparing for this one. Comprends qui peut. (Note: it is a system I know well but do not defend or condone, as I left it precisely for the reasons shown in that study, but precision is key)

Intelligence is highly hereditary in developed countries, so I guess it should work aswell

I graduated from the Italian version of it. The point here is passing the admission test. It is a brutal test but you can prepare for it. It is not something that it is easy to just pass without preparation. When you understand that it is not asking you to use pre made formulas and concepts but instead they ask you to model the system yourself or explain the concept making assumptions based on your knowledge you have much better chance to pass. And by having a parent that knows the type of questions/problems they ask and it is able to teach you how to approach several archetypes is a huge advantage. It has nothing to do with reccomandation, I can assure you. Genetics could also be a factor but proper preparation for the test is the biggest factor for sure. If any person is interested I recommend downloading the test from previous years and understand how to solve them (don’t be afraid to seek help from a professor these problems are made to be difficult and sometimes need to be explained). I recommend going from the most recent to the oldest. The earliest one were either easier (and not representing the current complexity of the test) or based on how the subject was taught at the time (which is often different from the current norm).

What kind of junk science is that?

I completely agree, because that's precisely what's happened IRL. Aristocrats, like billionaires, should not exist, and their power base (primarily money/assets/whatever political authority they've acquired) needs to be stripped from them entirely.

It's called biology

French person here, this is the problem between Equality and Equity.

For all intents and purposes, we tend to think of ourselves as a very 'Equal' society (Edit: Gosh we can be too proud of ourselves sometimes). Problem is that Equality would be the best thing ever if all other things in life were also equal, but they just aren't. Social connections and a parental success really go a long way in an 'Equal' society. Think about it this way, if every child gets the same K-12 education, what makes the difference between applicants? Which kids have an advantage when figuring out who to contact for applications or how to study for entry exams? Equality benefits some more than others.

Edit 2: I would hope that the Father =/= Parent discrepancy here is due to the low volume of females in these schools >~30 years ago. Maybe n is too small for accurate stats? Additionally this is right around the time when highly educated women in France kind of had to pick between families and careers (sigh), so maybe these women had less offspring than their male counterparts?

I'd guess it be probably similar cause a dude who graduates from polytechnique doesn't end up marrying a "commoner", goes the other way around too.

But it was probably easier for them to find a father who went through those scools for the survey than a mother. Very few females in some of those schools as of today : Polythechnique is 15% women in 2022 so imagine in 1990.
Today, Sciences Po would be 60% women (not official stat, but from my experience), and ENA less than 40%. The other schools are roughly like polythehnique cause it's sciences so fair to imagine it doesn't go over 30%.

no op made a mistake it is indeed noble not nobel

Tbh that would make sense why they get in more

>No university is going to admit someone just because their daddy made a big donation to get their kids in.

Boy do I have some bad news for you

Do you guys in the US and elsewhere know about Bourdieu ?
The concept illustrated here, he named social reproduction : Social reproduction is the sociological phenomenon that leads to the transmission of social positions, ways of acting or thinking, from one generation to another.

The dude came from a really remote department of france, his father a field worker then mailman, his mother a little bit better off, he had humble upbringings.
Studying in the averaged sized city of Pau (75k habs), he managed to make it to the best highschool of france through one of his teacher and then graduated from the best school (ENS). So he's litteraly a model of social climbing, no surprises he dedicated a lot of his work into studying the matter. Funilly enough all of his 3 sons managed to graduate from the ENS, that's social reproduction.

His work is really passionating, when you read it you are always surprised how simple what he says is but yet you never really conceptualized it or put it into words yet you were always aware of it. Some might have their mind blown if you weren't really self aware untill then.

I think the ENA is a blessing for France. Look at other governments and see how nepotism places people completely unprepared in government jobs solely because they're part of the ruling party. The ENA leads to technocracy, and elitism, but I believe it's much better than unprepared people.

What you mean is wealth and life opportunities are 'hereditary'

No I meant that IQ is highly heritable, although there is a correlation between wealth and IQ

They still unofficially hold titles, and they have particles like Du Château instead of Château or Duchâteau

No university is going to admit…

No university in France is going to admit…

Should have to precise that my previous statement excludes North America….

IQ is indeed somewhat inheritable. However, you're assuming France is a perfectly meritocratic country. I'll burst your bubble there : it really isn't.

It comes from a french study (that I stumbled upon recently), so I assume OP just mistranslated and meant influent/rich/powerful/top 1%. We don't have "official" nobility anymore, eventhough some families retain titles.

I never assumed that, I really just said IQ was heritable

Don't serve me that "I didn't say this" bullshit. Your original comment stated that inheritability of intelligence meant that no matter the parent who went to a Grande École, it should give a similar chance for the kid to enter one. Unless your parents lacked IQ, I'm very positive you knew what you meant there, and that's what I refuted.

Ok, I'll explain my reasoning so you can understand : We observe that if one's father went to a GE, one has a higher chance of getting in the GE. However, we know that the GE's selection system is based upon highly difficult maths exams, and that IQ is in large part inheritable. Thus we can assume that we will see more or less the same trend if we replace "father" by "mother".

You're making weird appeals to motives, probably because you're the one who got his little socialist worldview burst.

> The ENA is certainly not "the best" university

It certainly is. HEC is very hard to get, X very very hard, l'ENA was another step above. Why tf would money be a criteria??

Yes. I'm sure there are no corrupt admins who would like a fat check in France. The French have long been shining examples of virtue. True moral paragons.

Not saying no such a thing never happens, but it is nowhere as systematic as it is in the US

And a looot of Fields Medallist.

When it comes to elitism and "excellence", the Oxford equivalent would likely be the ENS Ulm, at least for the 20th century. Sartre, Derrida, Foucault, de Beauvoir, etc, all come from there.

Absolutely, I don't think there was anything wrong with it. I guess it was shut down because it was politically toxic.

Yeah, the govt did say that it will be more open now to people from all walks of life, but I'm not sure how true that is. Maybe it's just a quick rebranding and nothing more.

Very interesting ! At least when it comes to studying the behaviour of hateful eugenists. But I suppose it's easily to become insulting when your poisonous rhetoric is being pointed out.

Whether you accept it or not, it's notorious that social mobility is extremely hard in France. The very fact that you have x25 chances of entering a Grande École when you live in Paris is revelating, especially when you know parisian candidates are a minority. Your attempt at pushing the discourse that you're 330 times more likely to get into ENA after your father did on grounds of IQ alone is ridiculous. You could talk about IQ if you had x100 chances of getting into ENA when you had a certain grade average in school or something, but that's not the case.

We're talking social reproduction and you're babbling genetic reproduction, probably because your disastrous neoliberal "based" worldview doesn't fit with the facts presented here.

That's kinda true for Grandes Ecoles, as in the selection process is mainly done through the Concours, but to really be able to prepare yourself for those Concours you need to get through a Prépa, and not only the recruitment process of those Prépa can be quite a bit obscure, the most prestigious one are mainly in Paris or Versailles (with one or two in Lyon) so there's a lot of geographical inequalities as well.

If you think people do not consider their expected earnings post-graduation as one of the most important factors when they choose the degree they want to pursue, you are seriously misguided. The vast majority of people who want to get an education do so in the hope of landing a high-paying job. The only people that don't care about money are those who have very wealthy families that provide for them.

Are the prépas for the Grandes Écoles different from the regular prépas (for example maths sup for an engineering school)?

I am not saying the inequalities are inexistent, especially when it comes to the financial situation. But thinking rigueur doesn’t apply to those applicants and they can just coast through because of their background as the OP implied is disingenuous.

Hey, X17 here.
ENA is definitely the hardest school to get into, by a SIGNIFICANT margin. HEC and business school in general are significantly easier. If you're an excellent student you'll be paid more from ENA than anything too.

No, and engineering school mostly qualify as Grandes Ecoles (think les Mines, les Ponts, Centrale, etc) - though there can be integrated prépas which is quite different.

However, going to a random countryside Prépa and going to Henri IV or Louis le Grand is not the same thing. In the second case, you'll have a significantly higher chance to get a shot at the top schools. You'll still need to work, you won't "coast through" because of your background, you can still fail but your chances of getting in the top school (so X + 4 ENS for maths sup maths spé for example) will be maybe 25-30% instead of 1-2% from a lower-ranked prépa.

And then, you're more likely to know the prépa system and less likely to be intimidated by it if your parent has gone through a prépa, which is enough to explain the rest of the difference.

And again, geographical inquelities matter more than financial inequalities here. I went through one of those prestigious prépa and was the first student to ever go there from my high school. I've known people there who weren't even first in their high school classroom but who still got there because they were from a reputable, bourgeois parisian high school. In our maths sup of 40 students, there were maybe 6-7 students from the same high school (the one associated with the prépa - because most of those prépa, i.e. henri IV, saint-louis, etc, are also high schools), and at least half were from the "petite couronne". Ironically, the prépa often have affordable boarding facilities and are among the least costly studies you can do.

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Sorry I don't have time to lose! Keep hating on rather than trying to understand and don't forget to downvote and to put a reply nobody will read

Wow, a random Redditor just decided I do not exist.

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… Or if something such as social reproduction existed ?

From what I read in the comment section of the thread, I can assure you they do not.

Sure, there is equal opportunities for everyone de jure. But there is no equal opportunities de facto, and you explained that yourself. If there is no equal opportunities for everyone, then the society is not merit-based. It is as simple as that.

This never truly was about intelligence, but about socialization. Read Bourdieu.

I mean, the data presented here suggests that ENA is basically nepotism with extra steps.

Although the extra steps are possibly of importance. ENA entrance exam is reputed to be extremely hard regardless of cooptation, at least being born from a diplomat is not enough.

Answering because I don't think someone who doesn't know the system will get the right conclusions out of your comment.

"However, going to a random countryside Prépa and going to Henri IV or Louis le Grand is not the same thing. In the second case, you'll have a significantly higher chance to get a shot at the top schools."
-> Yes. But not because of the prépa. Because the students in these prépas are the best (on paper, at least). Students in prépa are selected by the teachers for their percieved potential. The more prestigious prépas (the most well-known, oldest, biggest, etc) then get the best students. But as everyone is going through the same exam at the end, the prépa itself does not have that big of an impact. A mediocre student in a great prépa will do as poorly as in a mediocre one (I'd say maybe even worse, because the teacher won't slow down for the one student trailing behind and will leave them in the dust). I'll admit there is an issue in the other direction: a great student in a poor prépa might get slowed down by their teachers and the other students and not perform as well as they could have, but that's not the point I am trying to make here. The prépa is far from the main factor in the exam result.

Toi tu raconte vraiment n’importe quoi sans rien comprendre

How is that your take away from this article, when it's just a ton of people debating whether they should be called nobles ?

The study should just be interpreted as, a random person is extremely unlikely to go to ENA, while for the children of alumni it is quite likely

No, I really disagree with most of what you've said here.

The truth is, you can't really know who is gonna perform on not in prépa based on high school results only. I know about people who were really great in high school but failed in prépa, and conversely people who weren't that great in high school and overperformed in prépa. That, plus as I've said this selection tends to be very geographically discriminating, so if what you've said is true it would somehow mean most of the best students would come from Paris. Perceived potential and real potential are two very different things.

In the next paragraphs, I'll talk about the MP prépa because that's what I went through, but I believe it's roughly similar in other prépas.

The prépa matters a lot because, the most prestigious prépa will prepare you specifically for X-ENS, the middle-ranked will prepare you for the Mines and Centrale, and the lowest-ranked will prepare you for CCP. If you're in a low-ranked prépa but you want to prepare the ENS, you'll have to prepare for it by yourself. That's a very, very considerable disadvantage. Of course there's a common program, but the range of what is studied is way, way bigger in the most prestigious prépa - for instance in my prépa in maths we had additional exercises which we were required to know ; when I compared in my school with other students who came from lower-ranked prépa, some of them didn't even know about some of those exercises. It was not only important to know for X-ENS, it made a big part of one of the Centrale exam kinda trivial.

I believe there's also to some extent the fact that the teachers at the most prestigious prépa tend to be the best ones (because those prépa will be attractive for the best teachers) but I'm not sure how this selection works so perhaps I'm a bit wrong here.

Also, yes, the rhythm is obviously way faster so if you're not good enough in this kind of environment you're gonna fail in a prestigious prépa, and if you're good enough for CCP but definitely not X-ENS you'll likely perform better in a middle-ranked prépa. But I really think there's a very sizable portion of students who are good enough for Centrale and Mines and could maybe get X-ENS with proper training and a bit of luck but who are held back by the prépa they're in.

These comparisons don't even make sense. There are several types of Grandes Ecoles, the two most important of which are business and science schools. To find the most difficult Grande Ecole to get into in France, one must first look for the most difficult in science and business separately. In the sciences, it is without a doubt the ENS Ulm which is a school mainly known for mathematics. The math entrance test at Ulm is so difficult that many future Fields medalists end up doing very poorly. On the other hand, HEC is known to be the best and most difficult business school at BAC+3 (people around 20 years old). ENA is a school where most students come from HEC (BAC+5) but you can pass the test with a BAC+3. However, it's not because the test is hard that students go to HEC before taking the test, it's just because you are against other students, so they take 2 more years to get more knowledge and have more chances to be ranked higher. But the test itself is not really difficult, it's actually pretty simple. You have a panel of documents and you have to answer political questions using your knowledge and the documents. So which is better ENA or HEC? Well for me it's HEC, I'm also in a Grande Ecole and I talk to a lot of students from other schools and we all think that our "intelligence peak" was when we took the test to enter the BAC+3 schools. Finally, which is the best school between ENS Ulm and HEC? In my opinion, it is ENS Ulm because when some of the most famous future mathematicians give a blank copy because the test was too hard, it is because the test is too hard and not something else. To underline what I said, the selection rate is between 5% and 10% which means that out of 1000 students who are the best mathematicians of their generation only 50-75 of them can be admitted.

Is it the chances you'll find someone attending there, or the chances that you get accepted there on the same qualifications?

Lower case "de", actually. Jean de La Fontaine, e.g.

I have no idea what social reproduction means.

If that's the case, then these statistics are meaningless. They're comparing apples and pizza.

What is the source for these research?

This. ENA is not a university, and should be considered separately from the other Grandes Ecoles

Well I suppose, because of my political alignment and tendency to criticize things within their context, as good as the ENA has been for France in the ways you describe, it also contributes to reinforcing social reproduction in France.

Well, that just painfully annoying to read. Excellence and equity are not mutually exclusive.

Most of these school have a hard entrance exam

> business and science schools. To find the most difficult Grande Ecole to get into in France, one must first look for the most difficult in science and business separately. In the sciences, it is without a doubt the ENS Ulm which is a school mainly known for mathematics. The math entrance test at Ulm is so difficult that many future Fields medalists end up doing very poorly. On the other hand, HEC is known to be the best and most difficult business school at BAC+3 (people around 20 years old). ENA is a school where most students come from HEC (BAC+5) but you can pass the test with a BAC+3. However, it's not because the test is hard that students go to HEC before taking the test, it's just because you are against other students, so they take 2 more years to get more knowledge and have more chances to be ranked higher. But the test itself is not really difficult, it's actually pretty simple. You have a panel of documents and you have to answer political questions using your knowledge and the documents. So which is better ENA or HEC? Well for me it's HEC, I'm also in a Grande Ecole and I talk to a lot of students from other schools and we all think that our "intelligence peak" was when we took the test to enter the BAC+3 schools. Finally, which is the best school between ENS Ulm and HEC? In my opinion, it is ENS Ulm because when some of the most famous future mathematicians give a blank copy because the test was too hard, it is because the test is too hard and not something else. To underline what I said, the selection rate is between 5% an

>
Ulm and X are probably about as different as X and HEC in the people that are interested in going. You go to ULM for research, you go to X to make money, you go to HEC when you're incapable of getting to either and aren't interested in literature.
Either way, ENA's entrance exam is much harder than any other french school, it's simply a fact, percentage or not, the exam is taken by people with the same mindset then as they had during the classe prépa. You're getting tested againts the best of the best schools.

One of the carton reason is that parents who have attended these grande école will tend to push their child to attend one that much more.

What I don't understand is why people aren't mentionning the fact that if your parents went to those schools there is no way they are "common intelligence" so it's no wonder their kids is too. Maybe people don't know that these schools accept students purely on blind results in a heavy contest ?

Lol that's not true at all. Admission to these school are based on anonymous national exams. To have a family member that already went to those school for sure help, you have a coach at home.

You're grossly misrepresenting the article, it seems you barely paid any attention to it.

The article says:

>the probability to enter the ENA is multiplied by 330 for someone whose father was in any "grande école"

But you say:

>if you want to enter the ENA your chances are multiplied by 83 if your father was in ENA

Those are very different statements. Firstly, because the article is about the father having done ANY grande école, whereas you're talking about the same grande école. Secondly because the article talks about the probability to enter the institution, whereas you claim to report the probability to enter it IF YOU WANT TO (=if you go through the exam), which are again vastly different quantities.

Your interpretation in terms of "non-existent merit" is also completely silly. Merit is not innate at birth and equally distributed among people by nature. Genetics, education, and favorable conditions growing up all play a large part in whether someone can be meritorious. People whose parents are part of the "elite" (as measured per educational achievement) likely have, on average, a substantial genetic advantage compared to the average person. Furthermore they also have on average a large educational advantage, i.e. their parents educate them better or in better conditions, which makes them more competent, and therefore best suited for the careers that await them after these schools. Finally, these kids likely have an "advantage" in terms of ambition and pressure - people coming coming from high-achieving parents will want to match their parents' achievements (sometimes at the expense of their happiness).

That's not to say that all is pure meritocracy. However, nepotism - i.e. unfair advantages over more competent competition obtained thanks to "special favors" from powerful friends - is only a part of the equation and your methodology has no way whatsoever of detecting what part of this is caused by nepotism, lack public guidance for gifted kids coming from a working class background, or any of the factors mentioned above. The data (which you misrepresent here) doesn't contradict your conclusion but it certainly doesn't support it either.

Read Bourdieu. It is an important concept to understand the society we live in.