For your weekend, all you want to know about HEC or French B-Schools

superpapa88

                                    Demistification of French Grande Ecole Myths

 

Now, I am presenting my first anthology about  Frenchieeee Schools as a bonus for the start-up of our Frenchieeee division! It will take the form of a Q&A ‘cause surfing the asked questions in the forum, I realized that a lot of you don’t see the difference in the higher education between la France and the US, uncle SAM. So so…

 

1. GPA is of least importance for admission to Frenchieeee B-Schools while it is much more distinctive in transatlantic homologues. To be frank, most staff of Frenchieeee admission offices don’t know what exactly the GPA is nor how to compute it. Example, I was admitted to HEC Grande Ecole with a college GPA of 2.9. I even wonder if they had ever looked at my transcript. Nevertheless, in some US institutions that could be serious handicap.

 

2. From my experience, all my fellows taking the Frenchieeee TAGE-MAGE (copy of GMAT but in French) or GMAT and having a correct score got interviews except one who put all her multiple choice answers one place away from where they should be.

 

 

3. The most critic elements are: first, the “dossier” including your resume and a dozen of essays and second, the interview. Why that? Because HEC and other ESCs are by their nature professional schools. What they want is some one with thorough reasoning, proper manner and communication skill, briefly all that is needed in a professional context.  They will ask you questions about your life, your point of view on some topics just to know if you can interact with them, how you defend your opinion, if you are interested in the business world and if you communicate your ideas clearly, confidently without arrogance. That is something that you can’t fake or practise. You build your personality and skills every day. The only thing you can during the interview is to be yourself or you will get stressed by yourself.

 

4. The exams in my 2 years of HEC are nearly all open book. What ever your background, engineering, science, social sciences, humanities, if you attend all the courses, do your homework, a B note (A- in the US grading system) is not difficult to have.  So you don’t need to be a pure academic. “Bernanke is an academic but it’s no time to be academic!” as Jim Cramer exclaimed. That’s why GPA and written test is not so important for your admission.

 

5. About the job market. It’s some thing every one should care about. You are not paying to be out of work! First, you should know that HEC is the flagship b-school in France. Biggest budget, best research, most selective, powerful alumni as you can remark the same from Bocconi in Italy, LSE in the UK, SSE in Sweden and St Gallen in the German-speaking countries. The most logic employers are big investment banks, consulting firms and industry leaders.

 

But one thing you should be aware of: though the first 2 employers offer the most lucrative jobs, they deal mainly with EU clients speaking different European languages. Therefore, the native European students have a natural competitive advantage over you in the job market. That’s why Chinese-bachelor-background graduates in general take more time to find their bread and placement in IB and consulting firms are limited. However, you can never generalize to every one. They find their job in some less client-oriented but analytic functions: management control, risk management, equity research, quant analysis (engineering back ground)… Some one found job in M&A divisions, but not in the top-tier banks such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley.

 

Take my example, I adopted a different strategy. Thanks to my Chinese identity totally or partially, I found all my internships in big French IBs and my current trading support job (front, not middle or back) in a middle-size French IB (something like Jefferies in the US). Some employers were looking for some one to develop in China while others having working with Chinese, found their great qualities: intelligence and diligence. But I believe that this strategy will not be viable in the future with HEC’s annual acceptance of 30 Chinese a year. Just because there will be more people for the same pizza. So you need to be outstanding.

 

Last but least, to work in France, you should speak French correctly.

earlscourt

Merci beaucoup!!

very informative!

still, one more question for you, super:

have you got any IB experience prior to your HEC studies? How difficult is it "nowadays"(mearning:with 30 Chinese students intake/yr by HEC) for Chinese students in HEC Grande Ecole prg to land IB internships during the second year, esp. for those who majored in language during their undergrad years? I mean, do you have any knowledge of the internship market situation for those Chinese students who started HEC studies after you, any numbers, ratio?

[此贴子已经被作者于2008-3-1 10:21:46编辑过]

esprit

middle-size French IB

Natixis???

superpapa88

以下是引用esprit在2008-3-1 4:00:00的发言：

middle-size French IB

Natixis???

说明你对法国金融业几个PLAYERS的定位还不够准. SG 可以算 MID-SIZE.

esprit

以下是引用superpapa88在2008-3-2 5:08:00的发言：

说明你对法国金融业几个PLAYERS的定位还不够准. SG 可以算 MID-SIZE.

兄台的SIZE计算是以什么为标准呢？营业额，市值，占地面积，员工数，还是啥的？另外，兄台暗示你是SG的？我只知道N家有类似Chinese Desk之类的东西，所以才说N家的。

addy

很好的文章 谢谢前辈

superpapa88

以下是引用earlscourt在2008-3-1 0:15:00的发言：

Merci beaucoup!!

very informative!

still, one more question for you, super:

have you got any IB experience prior to your HEC studies? How difficult is it "nowadays"(mearning:with 30 Chinese students intake/yr by HEC) for Chinese students in HEC Grande Ecole prg to land IB internships during the second year, esp. for those who majored in language during their undergrad years? I mean, do you have any knowledge of the internship market situation for those Chinese students who started HEC studies after you, any numbers, ratio?

我对下两届的人还是有点了解, 但对三十人那届一无所知. 下两届的人实习都还是不错的. 但是主要原因第一还是这两年经济情况很好. 银行须要人. 当然从今年开始就不行了. 第二就是她们很多人都有一到两年的工作经验, 面试的时候会老练很多. 不像我们当时刚毕业就来了.  第三是他们目地都很明确, 就是想做投行. 我和他们接触整体感觉他们比我们成熟很多. 语言类的学生, 在做 CLIENT-ORIENTED这类职业时会有点优势, 比如IB 或 CONSULTING. 因为你的 COMMUNICATION 会好很多.  但是我们当时来的时候清一色都是刚毕业.  都不知道将来自己要做什么, 听说投行赚钱多, 就想做这行, 运气也比较好, 正好这波牛市刚起来, 银行要人, 我们大多都进去了. 但是由于自己来之前对投行没足够的了解, 尽管现也在这行做, 但是也失去了很多更好的机会.  所以, 总结一下, 如果你以前是语言类的, 要多看看 FT WSJ 之类的报纸, 对投行有个了解. 最好有实习一下的机会, 让自己老练起来.

superpapa88

以下是引用esprit在2008-3-2 6:14:00的发言：

兄台的SIZE计算是以什么为标准呢？营业额，市值，占地面积，员工数，还是啥的？另外，兄台暗示你是SG的？我只知道N家有类似Chinese Desk之类的东西，所以才说N家的。

ESPRIT, 这个名字很熟, 莫非你以前在枫丹? 银行的规模一般都是以 ASSET 来算的, VALUATION 的时候多数用 PB .

earlscourt

以下是引用superpapa88在2008-3-3 0:50:00的发言：

我对下两届的人还是有点了解, 但对三十人那届一无所知. 下两届的人实习都还是不错的. 但是主要原因第一还是这两年经济情况很好. 银行须要人. 当然从今年开始就不行了. 第二就是她们很多人都有一到两年的工作经验, 面试的时候会老练很多. 不像我们当时刚毕业就来了.  第三是他们目地都很明确, 就是想做投行. 我和他们接触整体感觉他们比我们成熟很多. 语言类的学生, 在做 CLIENT-ORIENTED这类职业时会有点优势, 比如IB 或 CONSULTING. 因为你的 COMMUNICATION 会好很多.  但是我们当时来的时候清一色都是刚毕业.  都不知道将来自己要做什么, 听说投行赚钱多, 就想做这行, 运气也比较好, 正好这波牛市刚起来, 银行要人, 我们大多都进去了. 但是由于自己来之前对投行没足够的了解, 尽管现也在这行做, 但是也失去了很多更好的机会.  所以, 总结一下, 如果你以前是语言类的, 要多看看 FT WSJ 之类的报纸, 对投行有个了解. 最好有实习一下的机会, 让自己老练起来.

我完全明白你的意思,非常感谢这么detailed的肺腑之言!

那么允许我再罗嗦问下HEC对GMAT分数的看重程度问题. 他们面试完后是把申请人的各项指标的分数加起来由高到低排队来录取吗? 如果是,这些指标中GMAT的权重大概有多少? 50%这么多吗? 还是,经过面试之后,GMAT分数就不会再被HEC当作衡量申请人的因素之一做录取决定?

merci!

[此贴子已经被作者于2008-3-3 20:10:56编辑过]

jean_fei

Lz说的太棒了！！！顶一个！我也正在向着您看齐呢，不知道能否加你msn，向你请教学习。我现在正在痛苦地等待面试中。