First responses to the wishes of high school students registered on Parcoursup, responses experienced as a source of stress and frustration by the candidates. Since its establishment in 2018, the platform has concentrated criticism.
End of suspense for 917,000 high school students (and students in reorientation) when they received the first answers to their wishes, Thursday June 1. Admitted, placed on a waiting list or refused, a majority of applicants harbor stress and frustration with regard to a particularly decried device. Some reviews emphasize on how Parcoursup works and others on the very spirit of this platform.
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The “form” of Parcoursup called into question
The opacity of Parcoursup’s operation is often denounced. The Court of Auditors itself had noted this in a report in 2020. It suggested making public what are called “local algorithms”, that is to say the selection criteria for each sector.
To simplify, the training courses classify the candidates using software, or quite simply in an Excel table according to their notes. And each applies its own criteria. Those who are selected are those who meet these criteria. Those who correspond the most are taken, the less good are rejected, and those in the middle are decided by the committee for examining the wishes of each course. Except that we do not know what specific criteria, the formations look. Does the candidate’s project really count? Or just his notes? Is the level of the original high school taken into account?
Criticisms of the “spirit” of Parcoursup
Sociologist Romain Delès believes that the platform creates a “facade equality“, where the students would only be chosen thanks to their academic results. Except that, according to the researcher, this is to forget that favored students are more likely to have good grades. Several unions make the same criticism, including Sud Education which denounces a social sorting. More generally, it is the permanent selection which is targeted, even in so-called non-selective studies such as the university. In a press release published Thursday, June 1, the UNEF denounces a vision “liberal” imposing a competition between the pupils, a “elite factory“.
The government’s responses?
The Ministry of Higher Education has revised its copy this year to create more “transparency” on the platform. A new section has appeared to better understand the criteria for analyzing applications in each training. The Parcoursup project managers also want to remind you that it is not the platform that created the selection, because it already existed before and that this system made it possible to remedy the old system by drawing lots, in the universities.
They also recall that since the creation of this platform, the number of scholarship students has increased. For them, there is therefore no social discrimination. The platform also makes it possible to guarantee places in BTS for baccalaureate holders with a professional baccalaureate, who are much less likely to be taken to university.