How to join us
Our students come from diverse backgrounds: students who passed the competitive entrance exam to ENS Lyon, students who were accepted based on their academic records in French universities, visiting students from International partner universities (Erasmus and similar exchange programmes), and International students who were accepted based on their academic records. Students may enter the curriculum in L3 (third year of Bachelor’s degree), M1 (first year of Master’s degree) and M2. The applicants must be motivated by careers in higher education or research, and by studies that are both challenging and demanding.
More information about the 4 ENS are available in french here: https://diplome.di.ens.fr/informatique-ens/
To prepare the competitive entrance exam, the student should have followed the 2-year curriculum of a classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles (premier concours) or the first 2 years of a Bachelor’s curriculum of a French university (second concours). Information on the competitive entrance exams can be found here.
After being accepted, the students who are citizen of a member state of the European Union become temporary civil servants. The students coming from other countries can obtain the same status when they acquire the citizenship of a member state of the European Union.
Records-based admission is possible to follow a full curriculum at ENS Lyon (4 years including L3, within the ENS Lyon diploma framework), or to follow 1 or 2 years of Master.
Admission is based on the excellency of records, and an interview may be requested. The decision is taken by the admission jury. The only criteria are the relevency of the application, the quality of the academic curriculum, the academic records, and the personal project of the applicant. If you are a French student, then follow this link (in French), else goto the next section.
The CS department of ENS de Lyon encourages International students to apply. A limited number of scholarships are available to International students, based on academic records (Bourses Ampère, Bourses MILYON). All the M1 and M2 courses are given in English.
If you are an International student and are interested in applying to enter our curriculum, either as an exchange student or an ENS Lyon student, you should contact the International coordinator of the department and the head of the curriculum year you intend to apply to. The application procedures are described here.