The schedule for the APB procedure (the system of admissions to higher education)

Écran d'accueil du site APBEnrolment procedure

Final year high school pupils in the Académie de Paris can enrol on higher education courses exclusively by logging onto the national Internet portal called APB (Admission postbac) at www.admission-post-bac.fr, whatever the course (selective or not) and wherever the establishment requested may be in France.

The APB procedure concerns: final year high school pupils in general, technical or vocational education in state or private schools under contract with the Ministry of Education or of Agriculture, students taking correspondence courses at the CNED (National Centre for Distant Learning), those in training centres for apprentices and people with a baccalauréat or an equivalent diploma.

The APB procedure concerns all final year high school pupils or those who already have a baccalauréat or an equivalent diploma and who wish to start a third-level course. Most of the public and private institutes of higher education take part in the procedure.

The public website admission-postbac.fr has been open since December 1st, 2016

It is a national website aimed at coordinating admission applications to the first year of higher education courses. This site enables applicants to:

  • obtain information about the various courses on offer in France, either in state or private schools.
  • make choices from January 20 to March 20, 2017 for the higher education courses they want to take, making sure they put them in the order of preference and confirm them before April 2, 2017 at the latest.

This site is where pupils have to go to express their preferences as regards higher education courses and where they can monitor their preregistrations. There are no registration forms to fill out for most preregistrations for the first year of bachelor’s degree courses at university (Licence 1 or L1 courses) or for courses in the domain of health. However, an application form and various documents are required for all selective courses (BTS courses, Classes Préparatoires, IUTs (technical colleges), etc.), a “paper” file (to be sent to the targeted establishments before April 2, 2017) or a “dematerialised electronic file”.

The preference expressed by a pupil on APB for a selective course is not taken into account if the pupil has not provided the institute of his choice with all the required documents. Indeed, if that is the case, the institute cannot even examine the application.

The order of preference as expressed on the APB website can be modified until May 31, 2017.

The order of preferences is crucial as it influences the unique offer that is made at each one of the 3 stages of the procedure.

To find out their results, pupils have to read their e-file at 3 different stages of the admissions procedure:

  •  1st stage : from June 8 at 2 p.m. to June 13 at 2 p.m.

(this concerns ALL THE APPLICANTS who must absolutely access their APB e-file to find out which courses they may be offered and then give an answer).

  •  2nd stage : from June 26 at 2 p. m. to July 1st at 2 p.m.

(only for the pupils who have not given a final positive answer or who did not obtain any offer at the previous stage).

  •  3rd stage : from July 14 at 2 p.m. To July 19 at 2 p.m.

(only for the pupils who have not given a final positive answer or who did not obtain any offer at the two previous stages).

There is only ONE admission offer at each stage, the best one for which are taken into account :

  •  the order of preference
  •  the ranking of pupils by selective schools and, from the 2nd stage on, the places left vacant by other applicants.

Once the offer is accepted (with a « yes but » answer or a final « yes »), pupils must necessarily register with the establishment concerned with the positive answer, following a procedure explained on APB.

After all the preferences are registered on March 20, 2017, it is still possible to enrol on a higher education course with a complementary procedure for vacant places. This procedure starts on June 27, 2017 and ends on September 25, 2017 at midnight.