an association supports high school students from rural areas to help them access the most highly rated training courses

While registrations begin on January 17 on Parcoursup, an association helps high school students to fight against self-censorship and access the most selective courses.

Registrations begin Wednesday January 17 on the Parcoursup platform. Students have until March 14 to make their wishes. The website has been open since December 20 to allow high school students to find out about the training they can follow once they have completed their baccalaureate. A stressful moment for sure, but an association called “From territories to Grandes écoles”, supports hundreds of high school students from rural areas each year. The goal: to ban self-censorship and allow them to access the most highly rated training courses, regardless of where they live.

Léa, 18 years old, from a village in Nièvre with 1,000 inhabitants, has just spent her first year at Sciences Po Paris without incident. With very good honors in the baccalaureate, with congratulations from the jury, integrating Science Po has always been his goal. The association “From Territories to Grandes Écoles” supported it. Léa benefited from mentoring: support, for two years. She formed a pair with a preparatory student: “To enter Science Po, you have to write papers, answer questions, etc. So it was rereading, advice from my partner. But I think that, on my own, I would not have said to myself that it was for me. Because we often think that it is intended for students who are already in major Parisian high schools, which was not at all my case. It is rather from this point of view that the “The association really helped me to overcome the self-censorship I had.”

“A human link between this platform and the high school student”

And even if Léa, well prepared and well supervised, quickly found her bearings on Parcoursup, the association can also help those who have more difficulties. Margot Lecoeur is its president: “We are going to explain to them how we effectively fill out tabs on the platform, where to look for information. We are really there to create a human link between this platform – both very complete and at the same time very complex – and the high school student who may be a little afraid to go there. Two weeks ago, I was in a forum and a high school student who came from a somewhat distant territory came to see me saying ‘I would like to do ‘economics, political science, I would like to apply on Parcoursup at the university in the medium-sized town near my home.’ And we asked her if she had thought about looking at political studies institutes, Science Po etc. She looked at us and said ‘But what is that?’ And there we said to ourselves that we had a use, that we could broaden the range of possibilities for these high school students.”

The association “From Territories to Grandes Ecoles”, present in 58 departments, ensures that 75% of high school students who have joined its mentoring system ultimately access selective courses.