Ecole Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique (often nicknamed X) is the foremost French engineering school. Known for its extremely competitive entrance exam, it produces graduates that occupy outstanding positions in industry and research. Among its alumni are several Nobel prizes winners and many CEOs of French and international companies.

www.polytechnique.fr

Founded in 1794 and initially located in the Latin Quarter in central Paris, it was moved to Palaiseau in 1976. Traditionally, a favoured goal of the polytechniciens is to join the elite government bodies known as the grands corps techniques de l'État (X-Mines, X-Ponts, X-INSEE,...) ; nowadays the majority of the 500 students who graduate each year join Ph.D. or masters programmes in French or foreign universities. The school is one of the founding members of ParisTech.

As one of the world's foremost establishments in science education, The École polytechnique trains graduates who become outstanding scientists, researchers, managers.

Ecole Polytechnique ranks among the best universities of the world. The MINES ParisTech Professional Ranking of World Universities 2008, which ranks institutions of higher education according to the number of CEOs of Fortune Global 500 that obtained degrees from them, ranked it 15th in the world (4th in France)

History

• The École has more than 200 years of tradition:
• 1794: The École centrale des travaux publics is founded by Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge, during the French Revolution, at the time of the National Convention. It is renamed “École Polytechnique” one year later.
• 1805: Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte settles the École on Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, in the Quartier Latin, in central Paris ( 48.847747°N 2.349043°E ), as a military academy and gives its motto Pour la Patrie, les Sciences et la Gloire.
• 1814: Students take part in the fights to defend Paris from the Prussians.
• 1830: Fifty students participate to the July Revolution.
• 1914–1918: Students are mobilised and the school is transformed into a hospital. More than two hundred students are killed.
• 1939–1945: the École Polytechnique is moved away to Lyon in the free zone. More than four hundred polytechnicians died for France during the Second World War (Free French, French Resistance, Nazi camps).
• 1970: The École becomes a state supported civilian institution, under the auspice of the Minister of Defense.
• 1972: Women are admitted to Ecole Polytechnique for the first time.
• 1976: The École moves from Paris to Palaiseau (approx 25 km / 15 miles from Paris)
• 1985: The École starts delivering Ph.D. degrees.
• 1994: Celebration of the bicentennial chaired by President François Mitterrand
• 2000: A new cursus is set in place, passing to 4 years and reforming the polytechnicien curriculum
• 2005: The École starts delivering Master's degrees
• 2007: The École is a founding member of ParisTech
  

Status

The École polytechnique is a higher education establishment run under the supervision of the French ministry of Defence (administratively speaking, it is a national public establishment of an administrative character). Though no longer a military academy, it is headed by a general, and employs military personnel in executive, administrative and sport training positions. Both male and female French polytechniciens (or “X”), as the engineering students of the school, are reserve officer trainees and have to go through a period of military training before the start of engineering studies.

However, the military aspects of the school have lessened with time, with fewer and fewer students joining officer careers after leaving the school, and the reduced duration of preliminary military training. On great occasions, such as the military parade on the Champs-Élysées on Bastille Day, the polytechniciens wear the 19th-century-style “grand uniform”, with the famous bicorne, or cocked hat (students usually don't wear any uniform during courses since the suppression of the “internal uniform” in the mid-1980s).

Reputation

The École Polytechnique is ranked among the most prestigious engineering schools of the world, for instance by the “World Universities Ranking” of The Times Higher Education Supplement. In all rankings published by French newspapers, the École Polytechnique almost always secures first place among French institutions, and according to salary surveys its graduates receive the highest pay among all French graduates.

Grades of the “common trunk” of the curriculum are used to rank the students. Traditionally, this exit ranking of the school had a very high importance, and some peculiarities of the organizations of studies and grading can be traced to the need for a fair playing ground between students.

For French nationals, the ranking is actually part of a government recruitment program: a certain number of seats in civil or military Corps, including elite civil servant Corps such as the Corps des Mines, are open to the student body each year. At some point during their course of study, students specify a list of Corps that they would like to enter in order of preference, and they are enrolled into the highest one according to their ranking.

Since the X2000 reform, the importance of the ranking has lessened. Except for the Corps curricula, universities and schools where the Polytechniciens complete their educations now base their acceptance decisions on transcripts of all grades.

Departments

The Faculty
Biology
Chemistry
Computer Science
Economics
Humanities and Social Sciences
Languages & Cultures
Mathematics
Applied Mathematics
Mechanics
Physics
Vacancies

Ecole Polytechnique waas ranked 34th in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking