What is the Master in Management (Programme Grande École)?

The model: what characterises a Master in Management

The Master in Management is completed over five years, organised in two stages. The first three years form a pre-master's cycle that lays down the fundamentals of management: strategy, finance, marketing and general management, before the two years of the master's cycle make it possible to deepen a specialist area and refine a career project.

What distinguishes this model is, first of all, its general nature: rather than immediate specialisation, the Master in Management builds a broad culture of management before the choice of expertise is refined, year after year. It is also the structuring place given to experience, which takes several forms depending on the school and the pathway followed:

• an international outlook
• a strong closeness with businesses
• engagement missions that confront students with real-life situations

At Excelia Business School, this closeness with business is extended through work-study, possible from the master's cycle onwards and offered as part of the Master in Management since 1997. To see how this architecture takes shape in practice, with its pathways, rhythms and specialisations, head to the Master in Management at Excelia Business School.

The qualification obtained

Two distinct forms of recognition attach to the qualification awarded at the end of the Master in Management, and it is best not to confuse them. The first concerns the programme itself: accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education, it certifies that the course meets the standards set by the State for this level of study. The second concerns the qualification that this programme awards: it confers the Grade de Master. This grade does not qualify the programme, unlike the accreditation: it certifies that the qualification is at master's level, and it is therefore this that matters when a graduate wishes to continue their studies.

A third form of recognition, of a different nature, is added to these two: the Master in Management is listed on the RNCP (France's National Register of Professional Certifications) at level 7, equivalent to Bac+5. To understand what each one changes in practice, the page the recognitions our qualifications combine sets out the whole system.

Some schools add international accreditations to this, specific to the institution rather than to the qualification itself: Excelia Business School, for example, holds the quadruple accreditation EQUIS, AACSB, AMBA and EFMD Master, which fewer than 1% of business schools worldwide hold.

How to get in

There are two main ways to enter a Master in Management. The classe préparatoire remains the best-known route, but it is not the only one: post-baccalaureate recruitment also exists, and it is even the most direct entry point for those who have not taken a prépa. Joining a business school without going through a prépa is therefore entirely possible.

A third route opens up later in the journey: direct entry, which allows students to join a Master in Management with a Bac+2 or Bac+3 qualification already in hand, without starting the course from the beginning — a common option for those changing direction partway through their studies.

To find out how entry into the Master in Management after the baccalaureate works in practice at Excelia Business School, the dedicated page sets out the steps of the process. The application itself is made directly on the official Parcoursup website, where your application is available to view and complete; to help you prepare for it step by step, Excelia Business School's Parcoursup platform supports you.