Sociology Seminar 
Time: 12:00 pm – 13:30 pm
Date: 28th of november
Room : 3001

Stéphane BENVENISTE “The contribution of personal writings to the selection process of a French elite graduate school”

Abstract : While holding a higher education degree strongly determines professional trajectories, access to these programs remains highly unequal, especially in selective tracks. Two distinct objectives advocate for broadening their recruitment. First, the selection process could better identify candidates who are most suited to the professional sectors these tracks prepare for (skills matching). Second, the selection process could aim to diversify the socio-demographic profiles of graduates and, by extension, of certain professional sectors (diversity promotion). These two objectives, albeit not contradictory, do not always align. “Holistic” admission processes illustrate this ambivalence, as they evaluate candidates based not only on their academic performance but also on their backgrounds and their ability to emphasize these in personal writings. Used and debated for several decades in the Anglo-Saxon world, these processes were introduced in France via the Parcoursup platform. By reforming its admission process in 2021, Sciences Po positioned itself as a pioneering institution, allocating a significant weight to personal writings (cover letter, extracurricular activities, essay), accounting for a quarter of the final admission score.
This article examines the profiles of candidates benefiting from the introduction of these personal writings in the admission process, using data from  13,000 applications to Sciences Po in 2021, that include 800 applications from programs for territorial and social diversity (Conventions d’Éducation
Prioritaires). We analyze the exam scores and admissibility, considering both the candidates’ profiles and the content of their writings. Personal writings are assessed based on their vocabulary richness (lexical density) and thematic content (k-means classification). Although these data do not allow to draw conclusions about the quality of skill matching—since they do not track career paths—, our analyses show that including personal writings in the selection process overturns the traditional academic ranking, without significantly affecting the social distribution of those eligible (or
admitted) to the institution.

Organizers:
Paola TUBARO (Pôle sociologie CREST)

Sofian EL ATIFI (Pôle sociologie CREST)

Patrick PRÄG (Pôle sociologie CREST)

Sponsors:
CREST