Classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles
Unlike most students in France who enroll in public universities directly after receiving a high school diploma, students from CPGE have to take national competitive exams to be allowed to enroll in one of the grandes écoles.
These grandes écoles are higher education establishments (graduate schools) delivering master's degrees and rarely doctorates.
The CPGE are located within high schools for historical reasons (Napoleon created them at first as fourth to sixth year of high school) but pertain to tertiary education, which means that each student must have successfully passed their baccalauréat (or equivalent) to be admitted to CPGE.
Moreover, the admission to the CPGE is usually based on performance during the last two years of high school, called première and terminale.
Thus, each CPGE receives thousands of applications from around the world every April and May, and selects its new students under its own criteria (mostly excellence).
CPGE exist in three different fields of study: science & engineering, business, and humanities.
In scientific CPGE, the first year of CPGE is usually called the maths sup, or hypotaupe (sup for "classe de mathématiques supérieures", superior in French, meaning post-high school), and second year maths spé, or taupe, (spés for "classe de mathématiques spéciales", special in French).
The first of these prépas, nicknamed "hypokhâgne" for the first year and "khâgne" for the second year, is focused on a strong pluri-disciplinary course, including all humanities: philosophy, literature, history, geography, foreign languages, and ancient languages (Latin and Ancient Greek).
Khâgneux can apply to many grandes écoles, other high schools and all universities, among which are the following: Similar but distinct to Khâgne, the Classe préparatoire à l'École des chartes is the second literary and humanities CPGE.
The followed curricula vary from year 1 to year 2: The CPGE Chartes curricula are specifically tailored to prepare students for the entrance exam of the Ecole Nationale des Chartes, but students can also apply to CELSA and several Instituts d'études politiques.
), are known as Prépa HEC (preparing for the Hautes Ecoles de Commerce) and are split into three parts: Hours/week Since 2021, ECE and ECS classes have been merged into a single "ECG" course, the French baccalauréat having been reformed (notably, the iconic "S", "ES" and "L" filières, which until now served to divide students between ECS and ECE classes, have been abolished).
The same applies to the "ECE" section, the difference being that students study for 8 hours Economics and Sociology with a historical focus instead of geopolitics.
[13] In addition to class time and homework, students spend several hours each week completing exams and colles (very often written "khôlles" to look like a Greek word, this spelling initially being a literary prépa joke).
They consist of oral examinations twice a week, in maths, physics, chemistry, biology and earth sciences (in BCPST classes), French and a foreign language, usually English, German or Spanish.
Students, alone or in groups (generally three people), spend 20 minutes to an hour facing a professor in a room, answering questions and solving problems.
Similarly, in "ECE/ECS classes", students generally undergo 2 khôlles a week, each subject being regularly tested.
Weekly exams often happen on Saturday mornings and last 3 to 4 hours, depending on the subject being tested.
Students usually have one hour to prepare a short presentation that takes the form of a French-style dissertation (a methodologically codified essay, typically structured in three parts: thesis, counter-thesis, and synthesis) in history, philosophy, etc.
"Khôlles" are important as they prepare the students, from the very first year, for the oral part of the competitive examination.
A student (in a scientific CPGE) who repeats the second year obtains the status of cinq demis ("five halves").
The explanation behind these names is that the most coveted engineering school is the École polytechnique, nicknamed the "X" (as the mathematical unknown).
