Ecole normale superieure in Paris has produced more Nobel laureates per student than Oxford, and almost no UK applicant considers it. Entry is by examination rather than personal statement: for mathematics, applicants sit a six-hour written paper and must rank in the top 140. That is a different game from UCAS, and it is open to strong British students who are willing to look outside the usual five choices.

Degrees still move the employment number: 87.6% of graduates in England were employed in 2024, against 68.0% of non-graduates. — DfE, Graduate labour market statistics, 2024

Many of our students are currently going through the UCAS admissions process and, undoubtedly, becoming intimately familiar with the universities they are applying to. Sometimes, we tend to live in a bubble and only look at British institutions, so I thought it would be nice to provide some insights for an international institution.

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École normale supérieure(ENS) is a university located in Paris, France. It is a relatively unknown university from a global viewpoint, I hadn’t heard of it until very recently, but when looking at the statistics, it appears that it has proportionately produced the highest number of Nobel Laureates of any undergraduate institution, more than Oxford, Harvard or Cambridge!

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So naturally, this begs the question, why?

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What is this university doing differently for it to have consistently churned out such a high percentage of academically exceptional individuals?

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How do you collect the academically gifted?

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1) Competition:

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‍Compared to the most well-known universities of our times, ENS has a very low yearly intake, roughly 200 students. The majority of students wishing to gain entry into the university have to pass the following:

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  • An admissions test called Concours
  • An interview with university faculty
  • A French proficiency test

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Concours roughly translates to competition, and it is the process that grants applicants admissibility, essentially to progress onto the interview stage. It varies according to which discipline the applicant wishes to study but, in general, it is very hard for every subject. For example, to study Mathematics, applicants are required to sit a 6 hour written exam and rank in the top 140!

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Preparatory classes for the Concours exams begin 2-3 years beforehand, which gives a pretty good indication of the breadth and difficulty of content that a student has to learn to enter the university. The couple of months spent preparing for the UCAT and BMAT examinations in the UK are quite taxing, but try extending that timeline to 24 months or more and it paints a very clear picture of the kind of preparation a prospective applicant needs to do.

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This rigorous application process ensures that only the most intelligent and conscientious students in the country enter the school, which, of course, sets a good standard for the future prospects of the accepted cohort.

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2) Incentive:

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The French government spends roughly £6,100 per public university student per year, but up to £12,000 can be spent per ENS student. Whilst the fairness of this expenditure can be questioned, it certainly encourages the best of the best to compete to get into the top institutions in the country.

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So why isn’t this university as well-known as Oxford or Cambridge?

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Whilst it does produce the highest ratio of Nobel laureates than any other university, the total number of Nobel laureates produced by Oxford is higher simply due to the higher number of students studying there. Furthermore, it is a highly specialised school, only focusing on the sciences and humanities, unlike Oxford which has undergraduate curriculums for almost all fields of study.

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A bigger problem with ENS is that it isn't as accessible as other high ranked institutions such as Cambridge or Harvard. This is due to flaws in the French educational structure, which some believe to be rooted in elitism. Only the bright and wealthy are able to gain places in high ranking universities and higher education schools.

This problem is amplified by the high relative difference in standard between ENS and all other French universities. As a result, ENS is granted significantly more funding than all other national universities. This has led to the social elite staying at the top of the academic field, with very few opportunities granted to those from less wealthy backgrounds.

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Now many of you may be thinking, I am not going to be studying at a French university any time soon, however, I believe it is important to study alternate systems and their structures. They can help us to see flaws within our own system and make improvements for the future. As the saying goes, a lake composed of many streams is deeper than one formed by a single river.

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What else is worth reading?

What can this guide not tell you about your own application?

Entry requirements, deadlines and how offers are made change every admissions cycle, and vary between courses at the same university. A published requirement is where the conversation starts, not a guarantee of a place. Always confirm against UCAS and the course page itself.

Course claims are checkable, and this is where the numbers come from:

“The data on Discover Uni includes official statistics from national surveys and data collected from universities and colleges.” — Discover Uni, About our data

Where can you check this at source?

University application rules, deadlines and Clearing dates are set by UCAS and change each cycle. Always confirm against UCAS directly and the course page itself: