Classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles
French undergraduate education prior to entering Grandes écoles
The Classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (French pronunciation: [klas pʁepaʁatwaʁ o ɡʁɑ̃dz‿ekɔl], Higher school preparatory classes, abbr. CPGE), commonly called classes prépas or prépas, are part of the French post-secondary education system. They consist of two years of study (extendable to three or exceptionally four years) which act as an intensive preparatory course (or cram school) with the main goal of training students for enrolment in one of the grandes écoles. Whereas enrollment in public universities in France is open to any school leaver with an adequate baccalauréat, enrollment in the grandes écoles is restricted to the highest-ranked students in a separate national competitive examination. Preparation for this examination entails one of the highest student workloads in Europe (29 to 45 contact hours a week, with up to 10 hours of guided tutorials and oral exam sessions).
The grandes écoles are higher education establishments (graduate schools) delivering master's degrees and rarely doctorates. They include science and engineering schools, business schools, the four veterinary colleges, the four écoles normales supérieures and the École Nationale des Chartes but do not include medical or law schools, nor architecture schools. Because of the competitive entrance exams, having attended one of the grandes écoles is often regarded as a status symbol, as they have traditionally produced most of France's scientists, executives and intellectuals. Each grande école uses one of three different examinations, each with its own prépas: scientific, economic, and literary.
Some preparatory classes are widely considered "elite", being extremely selective, and recruiting only the best students from each high school, if not the best student from each high school.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles” is french undergraduate education prior to entering Grandes écoles. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Classe, préparatoire and grandes, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1096010. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.