How prestigious is the National French Exam (Le Grand Concours)?

I’ve been wondering about this for a while and when I started researching, I couldn’t find anything reliable. If y’all could answer that would be great. Thanks!

I think it is prestigious if you place nationally because you are the best of the French students in all of the US. Although, not everyone in the entire US is participating and not super well known, so it’s not super duper prestigious as say getting national merit or something like that. Also, it isn’t comparable to say getting a 5 on the AP French exam. If you receive medals for regional, it will be even less prestigious of an award. Still, it is something worth putting on college apps!

So really, it depends! How did you place?

Take it with a grain of salt if your family speaks French in the home, yet you took French as your foreign language in high school. We have a family doing that with successive children in our child’s school.

@BooBooBear Well, the good thing about the test is that native speakers are placed in a different division, so people who are actually learners of French won’t be compared against people who already speak it perfectly! Ironically, the French learners division has the highest scores!

You should go ahead and take France’s official proficiency exams. These are valid for life and are used by companies and government agencies in hiring people with French proficiency, and they are also used by French universities for students wanting to study in France. There are many locations where you can take the exams. Look up Alliance Francaise for more information.

Your national award is fantastic! Any national level award will help you stand out in college admissions and scholarship applications. Now it is time to build on that with official proof from France of your level of proficiency in French. Once you get your results, you can aim to improve until you have the highest level of certification. That will open lots of doors.

Here are three examples from my friends on how they have used French in their careers:

  • one person majored in French and also studied accounting, became a CPA, and took on a job conducting audits of companies in France, eventually becoming a CFO of an international corporation
  • one person studied French and joined the military, and has the highest level French proficiency certification, and because of that has a high ranking and travels to Paris and African countries a lot using her language skills
  • one person studied French and was able to secure a promotion in her epidemiology job at the CDC, advancing from a position in the USA to one that is international and takes her traveling to other countries regularly

Whatever your career plans, there will be a way for French to play a role if you choose that. Since you show so much promise with languages, you should definitely consider the possibilities.

The only thing about French proficiency exams is that many colleges take AP credits/SAT IIs/IB as proof of French speaking - rather than a $250 test like the TCF. So, I think money-wise AP exams and subject tests are better because colleges know about them more and they are cheaper. Another thing is that those proficiency exams are more for professions and visa, rather than college entrance (just something to consider before shelling out a bunch of money for those).

@angelkitty247 I did the 2A section and I got a perfect score on Part A and Part B.

@mommyrocks Thanks for the information. I will consider taking that exam.

S was ranked 2nd in the state on both the national French and Spanish exams as a sophomore, and 1st in the state in both languages as a junior. He was nationally ranked also, but I don’t remember the levels. He received another state-level French award junior year from a publisher who awards one per state. I’m blanking on the name of it.

I think that these things certainly helped his applications stand out.

He also had the other things mentioned above (NMF and 5s on 2 French and 1 Spanish APs), but it is always helpful to have state or national level awards.