Concours post-bac

Overview

"Concours post-bac" is not one exam but a family of French selection processes that admit students straight from the Baccalauréat (or final year of Terminale) into certain grandes écoles and specialised programmes, without going through the two-year CPGE preparatory track. It covers three main groups of programmes: networks of post-bac engineering schools (for example the Geipi Polytech network of 35 public engineering schools), the Instituts d'Études Politiques — Sciences Po Paris and the Réseau ScPo of regional IEPs — and post-bac "bachelor" programmes run by some business schools (for example Ecricome Bachelor). All of them sit almost entirely inside Parcoursup, France's national higher- education application platform: a candidate adds the concours as a wish (or several sub-wishes) on Parcoursup, and the written test, file review, or interview that follows is layered on top of the normal Parcoursup calendar rather than running outside it.

This is a different pathway from the Concours CPGE (see the separate page on that programme): those concours are sat at the end of two years of CPGE preparation and are run largely through their own portals (SCEI, BCE, Ecricome) once a student is already enrolled in a prépa class. Concours post-bac, by contrast, are sat directly out of Terminale, and the resulting offers are delivered through Parcoursup's own ranked-wish admission system alongside every other Parcoursup wish a candidate makes.

Who can apply

• Students in their final year of Terminale (any track: générale, STI2D, STL, STMG and others, depending on the specific concours' entry requirements) register through Parcoursup during their last year of secondary school.

• Students who already hold the Baccalauréat (including a foreign equivalent) and are not yet enrolled in a CPGE class can usually apply too, often through Parcoursup's "bac+1" or re-orientation wishes, though exact eligibility rules vary by concours and by school.

• Each network or institution sets its own additional conditions (for example, which Terminale specialisations it expects, or a minimum level in a foreign language), stated on the concours' own page inside Parcoursup.

Exam pattern

The shape of the selection differs by group of programmes; the table below gives the general pattern for each, not an exhaustive list of every post-bac concours.

A candidate can combine several of these pathways in the same Parcoursup campaign (for example, registering for Geipi Polytech, Réseau ScPo and Ecricome Bachelor at once), since each is one wish (with sub-wishes where the network covers several schools) among the up to ten a candidate can make on Parcoursup.

Marking and results

None of these concours use a simple pass/fail mark. Each one produces a score or ranking for every candidate — a written-test score (Geipi Polytech, Réseau ScPo), a weighted academic-file score out of 20 plus interview marks (Sciences Po Paris), or a combined file-and-test-and-interview score (Ecricome Bachelor) — and candidates are ranked against everyone else who sat the same concours for each school or programme they applied to.

Unlike the Concours CPGE, where ranking and school offers are mostly finalised through a separate portal (SCEI, BCE or Ecricome) after the exams, concours post-bac results feed directly back into Parcoursup: each concours score becomes the basis for that school's rank-ordered response list inside Parcoursup's own admission algorithm, alongside the candidate's other wishes.

Important dates

Dates vary by concours, but nearly all of them sit inside the same Parcoursup calendar. The table below gives the pattern reported for the 2026 session as an illustration.

Sciences Po Paris and the business-school bachelors generally run their own written tests, orals or interviews within this same January-to-July Parcoursup window; exact dates are set by each institution and published on Parcoursup each year.

How to apply

Registration for almost every concours post-bac starts on Parcoursup: a candidate adds the concours as one wish (for example "Geipi Polytech" or "Ecricome Bachelor"), choosing which member schools to target as sub-wishes where the network covers several, between mid-January and mid-March. Some concours charge a registration fee at this stage — Geipi Polytech's 2026 fee was reported as €60 regardless of how many of its 35 schools a candidate selects, waived for scholarship (bourse) holders.

Some institutions also require material submitted directly to them rather than through Parcoursup alone — Sciences Po, for example, asks candidates for written essays and supporting documents on its own admissions portal in addition to the Parcoursup wish. Candidates should check each concours' own instructions, since Parcoursup registration alone is not always the full application.

After the exam

Results and offers are delivered through Parcoursup's normal admission timeline: the main admission phase opens in early June and runs into July, with offers appearing against each wish as places become available, and a complementary phase continuing into September for places still open. A candidate responds to each offer (accept, accept-and-keep-other- wishes, or decline) within Parcoursup like any other wish, and ranked waiting lists apply when a programme has more eligible candidates than places.

Final administrative enrolment at the chosen school happens after the official Baccalauréat results are published, typically from the first week of July.

Preparation tips

• Treat the Parcoursup academic file (Première and Terminale grades, the specific written Bac papers each concours weights) as part of the selection, not just a formality — it is scored alongside, not separately from, the written test or interview in most of these concours.

• For concours with a written test (Geipi Polytech, Réseau ScPo), practise past papers under timed conditions, since the test is sat in a single sitting with no retake that year.

• For Sciences Po and the business-school bachelors, prepare the oral interview and any written essays well before the Parcoursup confirmation deadline — these are usually submitted earlier than the written-test or results dates.

• Register for more than one concours within a chosen pathway (for example several engineering or business-school networks) where eligible, since each is a separate Parcoursup wish and spreads risk across more than one selection process.

• Keep track of each concours' own fee, document and deadline requirements separately — they are layered on top of, not replaced by, the general Parcoursup calendar.

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