ParcourSup study: French higher education

Here is the URL link to the original dataset. This is my personal project about ParcourSup data, the French process to get to higher education and which type of students go to which type of higher education which will be published in multiple parts. I wanted to look at this data because higher education (also called post-bac education in France) is a huge deal and can also shows a lot about our society. It's also interesting to compare reality with what we usually view higher education. Last but not least, that's also a good exercice of data visualization and story telling which I hope you will enjoy.

How to use this file?

Most figures are interactive: you can select an item in the legend (usually on the right side) to remove this item from the figure. You can also double-click on it to show this item only and remove the others. Another double-click will display back all items. If you have any comment or problem, reach me out on my LinkedIn!

Introduction

ParcourSup Logo

A bit of background about this dataset and, broadly speaking, the French Education System if it's not something you are familiar with. We spend 3 years in Lycée (High School) to prepare for higher educations and the Baccalauréat (at around 17 years) which is the big exam to mark the end of High School. However, without any higher degree it's a bit worthless and here's one reason why:

Before taking the exam, the student will go through ParcourSup. It will make wishes to apply to higher formations it wants (up to 20). These formations will examine its overall academic records. Each formation will then either admit the student, put it in a waiting list (with a rank) or outright refuse it. The student will be provided these answers and may choose a formation it has been admitted to or wait for another formation. This process repeats up to three times until the student enters an additional phase. It's a bit more complicated but that's the gist of it. The Baccaulauréat is still a requirement to get to higher education though.

Moreover, there is not one unique Baccaulauréat, but three different kinds:

Students with good results will have a distinction with their Baccaulauréat. Let's get something out the way immediately: in France, academical formations are seen as the best ones. This is of course wrong but it's deeply ingrained in the culture and it will influence the choices of the students applying for higher formations.

General numbers

One key difference here: the word Institution will be used for any structure that offers one or many curricula. They will usually be universities or lycées (high schools) but that might not always be the case.

Here are the most used measures of the dataset so I'll explain them a bit more:

Thus, it goes like this: total_applications > ranked_applications > prop_applications > admitted_applications.

Another reminder that one applicant can submit more than one application.

Who are the students?

Let's first take a look at the overall repartition of the applicants. We will see how many there are, from which formations they come from and have some indications about their academical level. For starters, one interesting data would be to see what kind of baccalauréats the applicants did. When we think of high schools in France, we usually think of the Bac général explained above but that is only one of the available high schools. However, it is the one the most suited for longer education. How does it translate in the data?

As predicted, most applicants undertook a Bac General. Another relevant data: About a quarter of admitted students through ParcourSup did not get their Baccaulauréat this year: ParcourSup is a platform to go to a post-bac formation but not restricted to those who just got their bac. We must also keep in mind that not all students who got their Baccaulauréat will undergo this process: some won't get an higher education but a job immediately, others may go to formations not available through ParcourSup (most notably, Institut d'études politiques, commonly know as Sciences Po, a public school for political / administration education). It is often the case for Bac Pro which is specifically oriented towards quick access to the corporate world.

We will now look at the distinctions achieved by the applicants. These distinctions solely hinge on the student baccaularéat average marks (out of 20):

These distinctions can be attained through every bac type. They are a clue about the overall academical level of the applicant (and the only one we have). One may have excellent grades in high school and have mediocre grades at the exam. Last but not least, it doesn't distinguish between different baccalauréats: a TB distinction can apply any type of Bac.

Still, we get the results one could expect: most students get no distinction or a AB one (40% and 30% respectively), Bien and Très Bien being rarer and harder to reach.

Post-bac education possibilities

Before going any further, let's have a look at what formation French students can actually attend. We will breakdown the number of institutions and how many places are available. Bear with me, this is going to be a wall of text. You can skip to a graph summing it up if you want.

I will keep the formations' names in French because it would be an enormous task to do it accurately. However, here is an explanation of the broad types of higher education (the column "formation_type_broad"). Keep in mind that formations are more and more linked. It's not usual to see someone who started a BTS to switch to a Licence and then to a Grande Ecole for example. Don't hesitate to point me any error, I documented myself as much as possible but some mistakes may have slipped.

These three formations are taken in small-ish classes, between 20 and 60 students (we will see more about it later) which is why they are selective. The two next ones are made up of one big group (which can be divided).

There is one huge caveat I want to re-iterate: not all students go to a formation available in ParcourSup. Sciences Po which are already mentioned above accepted about 2000 students last year. Arts schools often select their students outside of ParcourSup, like some business schools.

Here is a figure summing it up.

Figure summing up the above paragraph

I will re-iterate this: it is common to change path during higher education. Usually, it is been done through admission based on academic (and professional!) records. Lastly, except in DUT and in PACES which are always public, other formations can also be delivered in private institutions. France is usually heavily biased towards public education but things are changing. What is the current state?

Only 1/7 of higher education available places are in private institutions, but the proportion is slightly closer when we compare the raw number of formations. It is not that surprising, formations with large capacity (mostly Licence and PACES) are usually public. Let's now have a look at the overall number of formations by type.

While BTS are the most represented formations, there are a lot more places in Licences. As explained above, Licences are much less selective and it shows as it is the formation type with the most proposed candidates. There is also huge demand for IFSI (nurse studies generally) for a small number of available places. I suppose many people make a wish for this formation yet then choose something else afterwards but I'm not sure. Otherwise, applications number and acceptance are more or less correlated if the formation is selective (DUT and CPGE).

Here the main differences between each type of higher education are clear. Licences in particular (and PACES as well) often admit a lot of students whereas BTS are often limited to ~30 students, DUT to 60 and CPGE to 48 (and if you wonder about the big bump at 96, there can be two classes for the same formation, thus doubling the capacity). There is also a pretty big cluster at 14 places in Autre formation. A large amount are vocational formations requiring a small number of students.

To end this first post we will dive into what kind of students are accepted into each type of formation. First, we will look into their type of bac before studying their bac distinction.

Overall, the most academical exam (General) leads to the most academical formations: Licence, CPGE and PACES. The latter two are very rough in this regard as the huge majority of students come from Bac Général. As one gets into more hands-on formations (namely, DUT and most of all BTS), others Baccaulauréat become more prevalent. BTS is interesting as it seems to be the more diverse type of formation, as well as IFSI with large numbers of student not directly coming from a Baccaulauréat. Licences accept a lot of students not coming from high school, which once again is easily explained: as it is not selective, even drop-out students can come back in a Licence to get a degree.

CPGE is the formation with the most distinguished students, especially the Très Bien ones (i.e. the best academically speaking). Even more telling, only ~10% of the students admitted in CPGE don't have a distinction! PACES and Autre Formation (especially considering 5-years engineering schools) are the runners-up. These formations have the reputation to be the most restrictive formations.

Afterwards, things get interesting. DUT have a large proportion of students with a distinction (~55%) followed by BTS and Licence. These formations also have a larger proportion of students not directly coming for the Baccaulauréat. Interestingly, Licence has an higher proportion of Très Bien distinctions: this can be explained by specific selective Licences destined to prepare to Grandes Ecoles. Another noteworthy point is BTS have an higher rate of Assez Bien distinctions. My guess is that some students end up in Licence because they were refused in the selective formations they wished for (remember that Licences aren't usually selective). Moreover, a significant part of BTS come from Bac Techno and Bac Pro and they usually need good records (which should translate in a good grade) to be admitted in the BTS.

Then IFSI and EFTS are odd cases, especially the latter: 3/4 of the admitted students don't even come from high school! They do have a low number of admissions though.

This concludes this first post about exploring ParcourSup data. Thanks once again to the datagouv website which is true goldmine of public data. Next time we will learn more about each type of formations by drilling down to the geographical level: where do students go, are some regions favored by the applicants?

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