Parcoursup
Parcoursup is an application process designed by both the French Ministry of Education and the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation to allocate undergraduate places to high school students and other candidates, mainly undergraduate students wanting a reorientation. It was released in 2018 and replaced the former APB (Admission Post-Bac). In 2018, 666,000 high school students registered to Parcoursup[1] in order to apply to an undergraduate program. The following year, the site received applications from approximately 651,000 high school students[2]
The main objective of the platform was to achieve “meritocracy” as Emmanuel Macron and his government made it a priority.[3] Parcoursup thus replaced the previous system of random drawing between students to implement an examination of each student file.
However, Parcoursup has suffered a lot of criticism. It is currently being blamed for creating anxiety among students,[4][5] and being opaque because each university uses its own algorithm to decide which students will be admitted.[6] It has also be blamed for the amount of work it generates within universities. Indeed, Parcoursup allows students to make from 1 to 10 wishes with as many as 20 subwishes for each of them. Hence, undergraduate programs receive far more candidatures than they used to and some universities can have to consider more than 100,000 student files.[7] This has led to strikes within French universities[8] and contributed to a controversy between left- and right-wing parties.
References
- "Parcoursup : bilan des inscriptions au 13 mars". Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-20.
- "Parcoursup : les vœux d'orientation des lycéens pour la rentrée 2019". Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-20.
- "Parcour'Sup, le retour de la méritocratie". La République En Marche ! (in French). 2018-01-22. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- Piquemal, Marie (2018-03-15). "Parcoursup : "Beaucoup de gamins se découragent et renoncent à la fac"". Libération.fr (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- "Parcoursup, l'année zéro". Libération.fr. Retrieved 2020-02-19.
- Princet, Sonia (2019-04-03). "Comment fonctionne le nouvel algorithme de Parcoursup (et quelles questions pose-t-il) ?". www.franceinter.fr (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- figaro, le. "Le classement des universités les plus demandées sur Parcoursup". Le Figaro Etudiant (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-20.
- "Mobilisation contre Parcoursup : 'Ce qui a réveillé les étudiants, c'est l'agression à Montpellier'". www.letudiant.fr (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.