What Students Say
Likes
- The international culture that gives students a chance to understand different perspectives and grow from diversity
- Course curriculum is one of the best in the world as it includes the foundational courses, specialization and more importantly, all the courses are practically taught with industry relevant examples
- Student culture in the college is very infectious with networking events and social gatherings to meet & know about the lifestyle of the cohort. This helps in evaluating our strategy for the rest of the college and as well develop your network
Dislikes
- The campus is far from the city of Paris which might bound students to the limited space and act as a barrier for someone who wants to experience European city life and also difficult to understand various business trends in the city. Paris always holds networking events, exhibitions for students and so many marketing stunts that would develop the creativity of a student
- Language barrier is still a concern. Even though the campus is English supported, most of the administrative and office work still requires students to know French
- Career fairs in the college mostly invites French companies who mostly require someone who can speak French and have the conversations with the clients. This might cause trouble with limited opportunities for English speaking students
Course Curriculum
- I would describe the difficulty level to be Extreme because of the cohort that is present in the class. As HEC Paris chooses students with varied backgrounds, they give utmost importance to the academics and past performance of the student.
- The positive side of having a competitive cohort is to learn and grow from the talented individuals, but sometimes, it might lower the confidence of a student due to high performance cohort.
Admission Experience
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I have applied to 4 colleges:
1. London Business School (LBS)
2. HEC Paris
3. ESSEC business school
4. ESCP business school -
I have received acceptance from all the universities. I have also received a scholarship from HEC Paris & ESCP business school. For LBS, i was initially put into waitlist as i applied to the college in the 3rd round (Not sure, if that is the reason), but after couple of more interviews, i was given the acceptance letter
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The reason i chose HEC Paris is because of the alumni network it possesses, the course duration is also another reason as 2 years of Masters would help to take a step back and review upon our decisions and goals
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The admission process for HEC Paris was simple. It involved an application form that required a student to upload their Resume/CV, upload the answers for the application questions, upload the Letter of Recommendations (2/3), upload the education and other documents along with few basic questions. Once the application is selected, the student will be called for an interview which is usually 20-25 min long to understand the motivation behind joining HEC Paris. And finally, a student receives the admission offer
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GMAT/GRE is widely accepted for international students in particular, while French students are required to attempt a competitive exam. For GMAT, the considerable score is >710 (Old edition) and for GRE, the score of anything >330 would be an outlier but it is very important to weigh the application and provide the motivation through a storytelling
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There were no challenges during the admission process. The instructions and next steps are clearly communicated
I applied to the 2nd round deadlines. As i was late in giving my GMAT examination, I decided to choose the 2nd round of admissions. The admission process is similar for all the iterations and no special factors are involved. However, since I wanted to give a fair chance to my profile, i decided to apply as soon as i have all the required documents for the application. -
My admission process took about 2 - 2.5 months in total starting from submitting the application to receiving the offer
Class Schedule
- Usually, the classes are 4/5 days a week with 4-8 hours each day. The classes may start anywhere around 8 AM until 7 PM depending upon the electives and optional courses chosen
- The average number of students in the class is ~80 people depending upon the course and specialization. Also, there are few courses such as Master in Finance where the cohort strength may go up to 100/120
- Usually, Indian students are very less in number especially for a Master in Management (MiM) course. The selection process is very competitive and every year, a 25-30 people get to study at HEC Paris
Faculty
- The student to faculty ratio differs for each course. But on an average, it is 1 teach for 25-30 students with the opportunity to interact with the faculty personally on an individual level
- The teaching methodology is 60:40 for Theoretical vs Practical. After the theoretical concepts are taught, learning happens with a practical case study. Sometimes, the industry leaders present their case and ask us to apply the principles learnt in the class. Since, the learning is through a practical touch, the student gets to learn about the industry and also work in a team that provides similar environment to the job role once graduated
- Yes, there are a lot of professors who provide assistance and networking details for potential job opportunities.
- I admire my Marketing head of department as she was very proactive in understanding the requirements of each student, always pushing outside the comfort zone and testing our business critical thinking skills. She also took time to speak to each individual and understand their expectations which I think has helped me a lot in deriving my academic and job search plan. She also helped students get into various internship roles and care about the morale of the students as most of the cohort are international
Campus Life
- The college has only one main campus in Paris. But has started a new campus in Doha, Qatar recently to provide executive education
- The college has all the facilities from library, sports complexes, medical services, food outlets, laundry services, vending machines, learning area, social places and clubs
- HEC Business game is one of the popular event that includes business case competition from the companies. This event brings in around 500 people around the world. MBAT is an other festival focused on sports that brings in around 1,000 footfalls. Apart from these, different country clubs organizes various traditional festivals such as Diwali for India for the international cohort to experience and know the different traditions
- There are numerous social clubs and associations such as sports, wine tasting, cultural clubs, creative associations such as photography. Clubs such as Consulting club, Finance club, Entrepreneurial clubs are also present to provide a space for student to express themselves
Part Time Jobs
- There are very few TA/RA/DA available in the college. But 2/3 people in a class usually gets selected for these roles by the professors based on their need
- The pay range is ~500 Euros/month and can reach up to 2,000 Euros based on the functions and roles
- There are no on-campus jobs available. Working anywhere at the food outlets or the libraries is prohibited by the college
- Most of the Indian students prefer to freelance and earn some part time money as most of the part time jobs available outside the college require French speaking skills and be able to address the native audience.
- Freelance jobs such as admissions support to the prospects, NGO consulting work, or working for a company on a part-time basis. Since the options are very limited to the Indian students, they usually opt for a freelance work in India such as designing, communication counsellor etc
Placement
- About 75% of the people get placed before graduating from the college and ~90% of the people get the jobs within 3 months of course completion
- The average salary depends upon the chosen specialization, chosen geography to work and the chosen role. But the salary ranges from 40,000 Euros to 120,000 Euros/year
- Common methods used to find jobs is through networking events in the college, University job portal, career events and other portals such as LinkedIn
- The placement experience is very hard especially for people graduating during a hard job phase. It is difficult to be identified by recruiters outside France as most of the Indian students opt to work outside France for the language reason
- Major companies include - BCG, McKinsey, Kearney, Goldman Sachs, Apple, Google, Microsoft.
Accommodation
- HEC Paris students usually receive college accommodations and is allotted through the university portal. And college also refers to come options i the city for people opting to stay out and they provide end to end service in allotting the accommodations to the students
- The monthly rent range: 500 - 750 Euros depending upon the time of accommodation each year
- I recommend people to stay in campus during their studies because of the facilities available and also to commute to the learning center or the class room
- Since the accommodations are on the campus, it would somewhere around 500m to 1km
Exams
- GMAT/GRE is required for international students. For French students, there is a government based competitive test through which admissions are considered.
- Statement of Purpose, Resume/CV, Letter of Recommendations, University documents such as Bachelors degree, conduct certificate and marks list
- The interview is a separate step after the application form is submitted. It is part of the overall process. The interview is usually virtual driven with the admission team and alumni ask few questions about the motivations and the story of the student.
Fees
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The breakdown of the fee structure is:-
M1 (1st year): 21,500 Euros
Gap Year: 2,500 Euros
M2 (2nd year/specialization year): 21,500 Euros -
The fees is charged annually and can avail the benefit of taking student loan from banks that are affiliated to HEC Paris business school.
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The monthly expenses would be ~1,000 Euros including groceries, food, transportation to the city, and other regular expenses
Scholarship
- I received a Merit based scholarship from HEC Paris of 6,000 Euros all at once. Apart from this scholarship, there are few others such as Women in business scholarship, Need based scholarship that is directly awarded from HEC Paris.
- Other outside scholarships include Eiffel scholarship (selected by the college and sent to the French government), Charpak scholarship (awarded to Indian students) and many other scholarships depending upon the native country of the student and the performance during the interview. My batchmates received at least one of the above mentioned scholarships and i found lot of people with no scholarships as well.
