Universities and Prepas for the Uninitiated!

Posted on June 12, 2015 by frenchimmersion

Somewhere between choosing lycées and choosing universities I must have dozed off! Suddenly I find myself with an 18 year old in the throes of exams, with conventional school aready behind her. I’m not quite sure what happened but as parents, we find ourself in a dilemma, and one surely lots of other parents suffer, (not least foreign parents trying to make head and tail of a new education system), the dilemma of “I’m not sure if I’ve made the right choice.

I’m not even going to begin to classify myself as an expert in the french system, far from it. Only an hour ago I had a lovely french girl-friend over for coffee, for a moment of “conseils”, or advice, who amongst other things even managed to put me straight on the fact that my lovely 16 year old, who has a habit of letting important letters fester in the bottom of his school-bag, still has one major french exam to do next week, and that he hadn’t “finished everything” as I was led to believe yesterday! The fact that he’s playing computer games and hasn’t come down for breakfast (or lunch) despite the fact it’s 3.45 pm probably resonnates with many parents out there – please tell me i’m not alone!- and may in some way help to explain why I have totally screwed up in terms of parental responsibility over university applications.

The problem with adolescents these days is that one minute they are adults and know best about their future, and the next they are hiding information in unread emails and letters and wondering why their “do it all” parents have failed to adhere to important deadlines. They lurch from shouting battle commands to their friends at the top of their voices through their headsets whilst at the same time failing to shower or wear anything other than a pair of boxers for the majority of the day, to “revising , honestly mum” with a split computer screen simultaneously showing a movie on the left hand side, and typing in revision notes to the right. Motivational comments and messages fall on deaf ears, usually because there is a set of headphones wedged into them.

And so I come to the dilemma. Initially my 18 year old was all set for university in the UK. A year ago, this was the only considered course of action, and so we spent a great deal of time writing all the necessary personal statements and filling int the UK UCAS form for the required dates, and then sat back to wait the result. A few months later it was the turn of the french online application form, The “Admission Post Bac”. This was the point of error. As the direction was UK, UK, UK, we filled in the french web-site as an afterthought, without nearly enough parental input, research or dedication. The purpose of this post is not to tell you how to do it, but to tell you what to do when you have passed all the deadlines before you realise that you have screwed up!

Essentially in france there are several different undergraduate educational routes, and the system is far more complex than in the UK. After the Baccalaureat students can go onto normal universities which can be good, mediocre or downright terrible, depending on location, courses and teaching staff,(and for that matter the aspirational quality of students), or they can apply for a “prepa”, otherwise know as the “cours preparatoire” which lead onto application to selective schools (schools of commerce, or business for example) and “grande écoles” (prestigeous selective type schools which are on a par with Oxford and Cambridge and MIT) ; or finally for “concours” (selection tests) directly into selective schools. For the universities and “prepas” the route is through the online application site, otherwise admission aplications are made via the “concours” to schools or through the “Sesame” online application site with strict compliance to key dates.

The problem arises when after a cursory glance and hastily filled online french university application in march your potential student decides, in june, that they are not cut out for the overseas course they originally applied for, and no longer want to study abroad. It is only at this moment when it is far, far to late, that you realise that those hastily filled-in details on the french site counted for far more than you had originally believed, and are now totally inadequate.

If, amongst the 6 or so french university applications made on the on-line site, your number one choice of university gives you an offer, you will never find out what offers the other universities would have given you, nor will you get the possibility of turning down your first choice in favour of your second. This means that if you have chosen hastily the wrong course or the wrong city for your future education, it is too late.

Or is it? And this is the question I posed to my french girlfriend.

There are three different routes possible:

If you are a french resident you are entitled to university education. You are entitled to visit your home-town university to request admission into the fac (faculty) of your choice, beit law, beit economy etc. As long as they have places, a home-town student has a right to a place. In otherwords free education and living at home, which is win-win for parents and students alike in the era of huge education loans, although most students wouldn’t necessarily see it that way. Three more years with parents isn’t always every student’s dream… or their parents, for that matter! At the end of three years study, the student makes an application for the concours (selective tests), known as the “Passerelle”, or “concours parallel”, into the “école” of their choice in any city – for example an école de commerce or business, and once accepted is leap-frogged immediately into the second year.

The second route is that of the “Sesame” on-line application. The student doesn’t take up the place offered for the current academic year, but takes a year out and starts building up their general knowledge, maths and language skills, and in the January applies, through Sesame, for the concours into the Ecoles of Commerce, Business etc and then, if successful, goes onto study the full course starting in the first year.

The third route is to reapply by the web-site for “Admission Post Bac” for the desired course in the following March, taking every effort to pay more attention second time round, and then simply take a year out and try to gain some extra attributes, a job, or a work-placement (stage) in the desired field to augment the application before the March dead-line.

I had heard rumours that applying to university in France one year late, or taking a “gap-year” was unheard-of, but my friend explained that there are many students who either start a prepa, or a “license” (degree) at university and then find it so tough-going, or not their “cup of tea” , that in fear of failing the first year they make a “safety-net” new application to the on-line “Admission Post Bac” for another course and another university just in case…and they do receive offers, which they then later take, or discard, depending on the results of their year exams.

The key is to keep hold of the initial “Admission Post Bac” student reference/application number, as, despite not having done any studies, the students are classified for new applications on the website as “Bac+1”, rather than “Bac” applicants and use the same application number.

It is somewhat of a relief to know that there is indeed a way through, and that the future doesn’t end at a giant brick wall.

But if you want to avoid all the stress, best to pay a little more attention than I did from the outset!

End of the School Year!

Posted on July 4, 2014 by frenchimmersion

If you were thinking that it’s been a long time since my last post, you’d be right! The school year since March took on a kind of frenetic energy, and, for that matter looks to continue for few more days yet!

Today, the primary school kids that usually hurtle out of the school gates were in an excitable state but keen to linger for their last moments of junior school. I became camera woman taking the inevitable last moment snapshots. It’s moments like this that remind you that you are inescapably in France. The school, a typically “Madeline style” old brick and silex house, with large front courtyard playground and tall metal gates was overflowing with children this afternoon all saying their fond farewells to their “maitresses”. For primary school teachers to kiss their pupils is common, and today the children queued in long lines to wait to have their hands shaked and their cheeks kissed before making their way out onto the street, mindful that next year they would be in Collège. Anywhere else such displays of affection between staff and pupils would be abuse litigation possibilities!

Collègians and Lycéens finished school two weeks ago, after a flurry of exams. Unlike the UK, results for state exams are published only a month after being taken. The adolescents can relax into their holidays without anxiety hanging around them for the summer. Tonight I watch my older two prepare for the huge open air concert on the Rouen Quayside. The campbeds are already laid out for visiting friends making use of our city centre location! Following the success of last year when Mika played to a 60,000 strong audience, The city of Rouen has hosted another set of free concerts, tonight Martin Garrix takes over from the support bands at 11.30. It will be a late and noisy night!

The city will be buzzing through till July the 14th with masses of tourists joining the local population to watch the fireworks at the end of the French national holiday commonly known as Bastile Day. From that moment onwards, the local population winds down in preparation for the real French national holiday- the month of August!

Another school year is over. The school reports are in, and I’m a proud parent. Two of my children have averages of 19/20 in French. I have to record the fact because I am often asked if it is possible, and it’s a great moment when you realise that it is. I stuck my neck out this year and registered at university to study French, mindful of the ever growing gap between my children’s expertise and my faltering one. To date, it’s the best thing that i’ve done in France. I am over the moon to say that I passed the B2 diploma. At some moments there were doubts, without question there were frustrations and it certainly wasn’t a breeze, but speaking and writing the language with confidence creates opportunities, and opens up friendships and job possibilities. I am poised for the next diploma, the DALF C1, and all the amusement that it will hold for my children as I study along-side them next year!

But until that moment I can say only one thing:

Bienvenue à l’été!

Large Glass of Wine Required!

Posted on September 5, 2012 by frenchimmersion

Can you see the lovely sheen!

One of the French national obsessions, along with stuffing entire bars of Milka chocolate bars into chunks of baguette in an attempt to give schoolchildren a quasi-healthy after school snack, and having very small dogs (in handbag optional), is to send schoolchildren home on the first day of term with at least 15 text books apiece to be covered with clear plastic film. The obsession necessitates that French mothers always buy their children a new school bag each for the rentrée, and at great expense, to carry the mountain of books back with since the ropey old one from last year will undoubtedly collapse under the load!

Even a very good glass (or two) of chilled white wine is not enough to relieve the tedium of this job, nor will the addition of Edith Piaf, Serge Gainsbourg or Camilia Jordana reassure the failing spirit that the pedestal on which we have put “all things French” has not got a wobbly leg.

It is not enough that the text books are covered, but at the rentrée French supermarkets also abound with shiny coloured plastic sheaves in which to place and protect exercise books- the so called ‘Protège Cahier’. Woe betide anyone who has left their shopping too late and finds the much needed yellow ‘protège cahiers’ have run out – because no other colour will do!

I have in the past attempted to cheat. One year I tried to claim that the Cellophane cover from last year (which to be fair did have a couple of compass stab marks) was my own. It wasn’t really in such bad condition at all and the thought of ripping off the older cover to replace it for newer identical cover was too much! It was returned the next day for recovering by an unimpressed ‘maitresse’.

Another year I bought sticky-back plastic covering. This stuff is notoriously impossible to use but looks great once mastered. It took a while to ensure that I hadn’t trapped half the atmosphere in the form of annoying little air bubbles as I stuck it to the book in question. At the end of a VERY long evening I had been very satisfied by the pile of immaculate, and may I say perfectly finished books at my side.

This time the ‘maitresse’ sent the entire pile home again because they were SO perfectly done that she hadn’t been able to tell they had been done at all. After a week or so of ‘backward’ and ‘forwarding’ of my perfectly covered books for re-covering my, by this point very anxious and faintly hysterical child, begged me to back down.

Through gritted teeth they were recovered- again; unsticky clear film ceremoniously wrapped over the earlier adhesive film…. but not without one or two compass jab marks thrown in for good measure.

I’m just off to refill my glass!

Wrapping up the summer!

Posted on August 28, 2012 by frenchimmersion

The sky is still a clear blue with little puffy clouds scudding across it; The stripey awning over the kitchen window is protecting the kitchen from overheating. Half of me can’t believe we are at the dawn of a new school year, but the fact that it’s dark by 9pm is unequivocal. Looking at the piles upon piles of ‘fournitures’ (stationary for the uninitiated) on the floor, and for any non french resident who hasn’t gone through the rentrée process of buying up an entire supermarketful of exercise books (cahiers), coupie double and copie simple (filepaper), lutins (file of plastic sleeves) and classeurs (files), there is no dispute; The new term is nearly upon us.

It’s true: I bought the shop!

Until this year I had spent a considerable amount of time worrying about the madness of carting four non francophone children across the channel and expecting them to ‘just get on with it’. But this year I really feel I can sit back and enjoy the peace that will reign in this house when they all depart on monday morning bags in hand. And ‘Yes’ we have had to endure the ‘my bag’s no longer cool’ issue too!

All this anticipated peace of mind is grace to my daughter, now 15, who arrived 3 years ago without a word of French, and who has gone from strength to strength! Let me tell you a secret, to all those considering such a move –

It can be done!

I’ll take you back to May – the beginning of the summer, when stress and anxiety were our middle names. Having arrived at school drop-off where my daughter was sitting her final Brevet Blanc with ‘Tiers Temps’ (extra time), I was precipitated into the office of the Directrice of our Collège to be told that the Academie Française had changed their mind. There was to be no more ‘Tiers Temps’. Not being fluent in French for a French exam was not considered a handicap! Having sat every exam to date with an extra hour, my daughter was to sit ‘the real thing’ in the standard allotted time after all. You can imagine the ensuing panic!

For the following weeks there was wistful hoping on her part that she might pass; a great deal of pushy mother syndrome (24 hours of revision a day is not enough); a little adolescent rebellion and a few ‘being caught out on Facebook’ issues; And when the exam days dawned we had tripled checked her ID was in her bag and yes, we arrived for the exam a good hour early!

Need I have worried? Well actually ‘No’. Two weeks after the final exam, and out of a possible list of scores – ‘Aquis’, ‘Mention’, ‘Mention Bien’ and ‘Mention Très Bien’, she scooped a ‘Mention Bien’, and received her acceptance to the OIB at her chosen Lycée.

Unlike those poor UK students who have to sit through their entire summer holidays wondering how they did and if they were ‘In’ to their higher education, we set off on holiday, happy, reassured and relaxed…

Which is a bit how we are starting out our new school year.

But this year it’s more than that… after a steep uphill struggle, now we feel that we’ve carved a niche, we’ve concreted our first foundation and we are starting to build…

The things you wish you knew about Troisième – Applying for Options International, Européen and Anglophone.

Posted on June 25, 2012 by frenchimmersion

Troisième is a year of choices, options and decisions. Today, the culmination of all these decisions took a unforseen twist.

For those that remember my last post on the subject of Troisième, they may remember that there are three basic choices for the Baccaleaureat General once one has decided whether to follow the Science, Literature or Ecomomic route. Broadly these are the OIB (Option International Baccalaureat in which the student will gain not only the bac in the leaning of their choice, but also A levels), the Option Anglophone or Européen (which follows essentially the same course with one subject studied in the English language and receives a ‘Mention Européen’ but no A levels) and the standard Baccalaureat.

In April we filled in our application form for consideration for the OIB. There are only two Lycées in Normandy which provide this option, Lycée Gustave Flaubert at Rouen, and Lycée Privée St Joseph at Le Havre. Each lycée has only 35 places and it is considered an elite course. The application was detailed and required a ‘Lettre de Motivation’ from each potential student – in English for the French applicants, and in French for the English applicants. Included with the application were the last three years of school reports and a personal report and declaration from the Directeur/ Directrice of the current Collège, as well as from the Professor Principal for the student’s class and also from the English teacher. There was also a score card (1-10) assessing the student’s ability in reading, writing, oral and comprehension.

A fortnight after the application was submitted, all the applicants were called to sit an entrance exam. This consisted of a written paper and an oral exam, thankfully for us in English, and which I imagine was the most daunting part of the process where the French students were concerned.

Before one starts to imagine that the oral was a ‘piece of cake’ for the English students, factor in conversing in English with a French examiner with a heavy French accent, and aged 15 answering these type of questions –

“If the price of oil rises in the Middle east, what will happen to comodities in Europe and why?”

The other terrifiying aspect of the whole process was the parental ability to misread the timetable and documentation and to forget to arrive at the exam hall with the student’s passport. No passport – no entry! Having lived on the edge of my nerves desperately trying to meet all the deadlines, I was hugely thankful when the process was over and the wait for results could begin.

However, there was never going to be just one option and just one application. With an initial starting point of 500 interested applicants, there needed to be a ‘fall back’ option.

In January we had interviews at two Lycées privées to register for the Options Anglophone and Européen. At both Lycées we were welcomed with open arms. Our daughter was a prime candidate for their Anglophone and Européen courses, they said. In front of us they read the three years worth of ‘Bulletins’ (school reports), ticked all the appropriate boxes on the Inscription forms, handed us the registration form to be completed at home and gave us a deadline for its return along with it’s obligatory ‘reservation of place’ cheque for 150€. It was in the bag. If the OIB didn’t work out we had an excellent ‘fall-back’…

or so we thought!

Suddenly in early June, a letter arrived in my letter box from one of the Lycées requesting that we filled in an application for the ‘Option Anglophone’. Hadn’t we done that already, I mused to myself -but knowing that France likes its paperwork, I sent the form into Collège to be duly signed and completed by the Directrice, the Prof principal and the English teacher. My daughter sat down to write another ‘Lettre de Motivation’ and we rushed it to the Lycée with a day to spare before the deadline.

On the 22 June I received an identical letter from the other Lycée Privée requesting the exact same procedure for the Option Européen. The deadline was the 21 June. You see my problem! It had been lost in the post. It was friday evening and would have to wait for monday before I could ring the Lycée to explain what had happened, and the French are strict on their deadlines.

On monday I returned from work to find a letter in my mailbox for the Option Anglophone. My Anglophone daughter had been refused a place for the Option Anglophone. It dawned on me that I had paid 150€ in the belief that I was reserving a place for an Option which in fact was not a certainty, and had only been offered the general bac instead, but not only that, thanks to the postal situation I had also paid 150€ reservation fee for the Européen option for which I had missed the deadline for application. And would she have got onto the option if she had applied in time anyway?

The good news is that we have heard verbally that our daughter is accepted for the OIB at Gustave Flaubert which is where she really wants to go. So all in all it’s a financial loss we had been prepared to take anyway, even if right at this moment we feel a little misled.