<p>One of the things I like about the grandes ecoles is that it is 100% meritocracy. None of this child-of-a-multimillionaire-guaranteed-a-spot-at-Harvard thing you see here. I smiled reading that the daughter of Princess Caroline, who graduated from a prestigious lycee, got a ‘tres bien’ on her bac, and did the preparatory course did not get into Ecole Normale Sup. Didn’t make it past the written exam, in fact. Imagine - a monied royal being turned down… the Ivies are aghast ;)</p>