Le Figaro étudiant: "Avoir un nom à particule multiplie vos chances d'entrer dans une grande école : l'avantage est saisissant" (Having a name with a particle multiplies your chances of getting into a top school).

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"Good grades in high school are essential to get into the best schools." Certainly, academic results count, as the fierce competition on Parcoursup shows, but it's not the only condition for getting into a top school. Indeed, numerous studies have revealed the limits of the French meritocracy.

"In France, competitive entrance exams have long been seen as a means of guaranteeing republican meritocracy, by enabling fair and equitable access to the most prestigious training courses," explain the authors of a study published in 2022 and entitled "Grandes écoles: failed policies of social openness". "This positive vision of meritocracy is, however, hotly contested because of the extent and persistence of social inequalities in access to the most selective streams: preparatory classes and grandes écoles."

In a thesis published at the end of 2021, entitled "Les grandes écoles au XXe siècle, le champ des élites françaises", economist Stéphane Benveniste reported that the chances of entering one of France's most sought-after institutions (Sciences Po, ENS Ulm, Polytechnique...) are multiplied by 83 if the candidate's father graduated from a grande école. In more detail, the probability of entering, for example, ENA, now renamed the Institut National du Service Public (INSP), is multiplied by 330 if the applicant's father also attended this school.

However, let's be careful not to darken the picture: a study published in 2018, conducted by researchers Julie Falcon and Pierre Bataille, revealed that over the course of the 20th century, schools gradually opened their doors to other social classes. According to the study, students from the most advantaged social classes have seen their chances of entering these establishments decrease compared to applicants from more modest backgrounds. Specifically, for a woman born between 1930 and 1939, the probability of entering a grande école was 16.5 times greater for a CSP+ than for a woman from a working-class family. For those born between 1980 and 1984, this probability was only 5.5 times higher. It should be noted that this study covers a wider range of grandes écoles than the one studied by the economist. As a reminder, in the space of almost a century, the number of "grandes écoles" has multiplied, and today there are more than 230.