Abstract

This proposal aims to explore the way the French Grandes Ecoles try to diversify their selection process. First we analyse the French system of higher education, based on a very strong and early selection of the best academic students after baccalaureat. This system can be qualified as a very closed one. Then we will show how this closed system moved to a more and more open selection of applicants. We can distinguish three levels of diversification: national level initially restricted to the same field, afterwards the access for students of other disciplines has been enlarged, but still limited to national level and now an international level, due to the Bologna process. This trend corresponds to the globalization of higher education market and to the need for French Business schools that want to take part in this movement to be visible internationally. In a second part, we would like to deal with the very important issue of social diversity. We will take the examples of French Business Schools in order to examine the measures in place designed to provide more or less social diversity