The average, barely: 5.3 / 10. This is the grade awarded by high school and university students to Parcoursup, which opens its digital doors this Wednesday. Last year, 570,000 high school students and nearly 330,000 students or adults in retraining had registered on this platform, a must for all those who wish to find their place on the benches of university after a baccalaureate, from a business school or even a prep class.
The interface, which replaced the beloved APB software three years ago, has a new feature: all the training recognized by the State is now included, bringing the number of doors open to students to around 15,000. It is up to them, in this very long corridor, to choose ten maximum. Did you say stressful?
Interactive map
To enlighten them, higher education multiplies the information available. For each course, we know the percentage of admissions the previous year, and the rank of the last received on the waiting list. An interactive map allows you to geolocate schools near you. "We also asked the training to write their expectations as clearly as possible," says Jérôme Teillard, the "Mr. Parcoursup" of the Ministry of Higher Education.
However, even improved, the software does not escape more than its ancestor APB to the criticisms of the users, many to judge it "not reliable", "mysterious", "random", to believe some 12,000 pupils of terminal and students, invited to note how it works, via a questionnaire published since December on social networks and called Acoupsup.
Lack of confidence
At the origin of this project, which aims to be citizen and without commercial aim, three entrepreneurs themselves fresh out of school: Guillaume Benech, Antonin Assié and Guillaume Ouattara. The latter was known in 2016 when, as an engineering student, he was the first to decrypt the APB source code.
The results of their “big survey”, which we are revealing, confirm that of all the tests in the school, the orientation remains the most feared. In the final year, 84% “apprehend” Parcoursup and among them, 63.4% admit “not having confidence” in the system. Their older students are barely more amenable. They are 43% to readjust the system with a note lower than 5/10. Only 18.6% reward it with 8/10, or more. However, the test went well overall for the 2019 class: 83% said they had been admitted to a training of their choice at the start of the school year.
The weight of the computer
“They had something, but struggling, sums up Guillaume Ouattara. The government's argument, which claims to have put people back into the system, is not perceived by the students. They think their future is decided by a computer. Almost three-quarters (73.5%) also regret not having received enough information upstream.
"With my class, we had to grumble so that our principal teacher stopped using the hours of orientation to complete the philosophy program," confides Myriam, in terminal L at Athis-Mons (Essonne). “I would like to be told very specifically what my chances are. This moment will influence my life for several years, I cannot stay in the dark! "
“We have a demanding audience, reacts Jérôme Teillard. The candidates would like us to be able to tell them in advance if they will be taken, but we can't! The juries are masters of their deliberations. »Once the applications are closed, on April 2, each college and school will classify the files according to locally defined criteria. The best positioned will receive responses from May 19. The others will have to wait, and sometimes a long time. In 2019, there were 3.4% of baccalaureate holders without any proposal.
The choice of security
Clairanne fears to count among these failed, because of her atypical course: motivated by an associative commitment which stung her in second, she wants to register in law… while she finishes a professional baccalaureate in personal services. “My playing card is my skills next to high school. I will explain them in my cover letter, but will someone read it? “, Wonders this high school student from Annecy (Haute-Savoie).
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Mélanie, in technological terminal in Alençon (Orne), is betting on her lucky star more than on statistics: less than 15% of young people from a techno bac like hers succeed in sports studies (Staps). "If you want, you can," she says. But in high school, we were told quite clearly that college was screwed up for us. So, even if she sees herself becoming a physiotherapist, Mélanie will also check nursing schools. Less out of envy than "out of security."
