> business and science schools. To find the most difficult Grande Ecole to get into in France, one must first look for the most difficult in science and business separately. In the sciences, it is without a doubt the ENS Ulm which is a school mainly known for mathematics. The math entrance test at Ulm is so difficult that many future Fields medalists end up doing very poorly. On the other hand, HEC is known to be the best and most difficult business school at BAC+3 (people around 20 years old). ENA is a school where most students come from HEC (BAC+5) but you can pass the test with a BAC+3. However, it's not because the test is hard that students go to HEC before taking the test, it's just because you are against other students, so they take 2 more years to get more knowledge and have more chances to be ranked higher. But the test itself is not really difficult, it's actually pretty simple. You have a panel of documents and you have to answer political questions using your knowledge and the documents. So which is better ENA or HEC? Well for me it's HEC, I'm also in a Grande Ecole and I talk to a lot of students from other schools and we all think that our "intelligence peak" was when we took the test to enter the BAC+3 schools. Finally, which is the best school between ENS Ulm and HEC? In my opinion, it is ENS Ulm because when some of the most famous future mathematicians give a blank copy because the test was too hard, it is because the test is too hard and not something else. To underline what I said, the selection rate is between 5% an

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Ulm and X are probably about as different as X and HEC in the people that are interested in going. You go to ULM for research, you go to X to make money, you go to HEC when you're incapable of getting to either and aren't interested in literature.
Either way, ENA's entrance exam is much harder than any other french school, it's simply a fact, percentage or not, the exam is taken by people with the same mindset then as they had during the classe prépa. You're getting tested againts the best of the best schools.

Hey, X17 here.
ENA is definitely the hardest school to get into, by a SIGNIFICANT margin. HEC and business school in general are significantly easier. If you're an excellent student you'll be paid more from ENA than anything too.