Parcoursup

How does the platform work?

Candidates open a file, enter their choices without ranking them, and attach a motivated project for each one together with school results and supporting documents. Institutions examine the files and reply with an acceptance, a place on a waiting list or a refusal. The candidate answers each proposal within the time allowed, keeping at most one place at a time, and the list gradually clears as others accept elsewhere. A complementary phase follows for candidates still without a place.

Which route applies to a health application?

Both PASS and LAS are applied for here, university by university, which means that the choice of city and of minor discipline is made at this stage rather than later. The number of places available in each course is set within the framework of the numerus apertus, so a strong file is only part of the picture.

What does this mean for candidates from the Maghreb?

Which procedure applies depends on the school-leaving qualification and on the country of residence. Holders of a French baccalaureate, including one obtained at a French school abroad in Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia, normally apply through Parcoursup. Candidates holding a national school-leaving qualification and residing outside France generally use the preliminary admission procedure run through the French cultural and academic services of their country. Checking which of the two applies, well before the final school year, avoids losing a whole cycle.

A common misunderstanding

Parcoursup allocates places; it does not assess qualifications from abroad, and it is not a route to recognition of a foreign diploma. It also has no bearing on students who study medicine in another EU member state: they apply directly to that university, and their diploma later opens practice in France through automatic recognition.