How I got accepted to a Master program at Sciences Po Paris

Hello everyone, today I want to document my experience in applying for a master’s degree at Sciences Po Paris at the end of 2023. I am very happy to be admitted. I hope this article will be helpful to students who want to apply in the future.

What is Sciences Po Paris?

This school is not very famous in Taiwan, but it is quite prestigious that everyone in France knows about.

I learned about this school through my French friends. When I was searching for relevant information, I realized how prestigious this school is. I found that among its alumni, there are many political elites in the world. A total of 29 presidents and prime ministers of France and French-speaking countries (including 6 of the 8 French presidents after World War II: such as the current President Macron). Many cabinet members in the French government or members of the French parliament were also graduated from this school.

In fact, when I saw this information, I felt inferior and hesitated to apply to such an elite school. However, my girlfriend kept encouraging me to give it a try. She thought that since I was not from the EU, the probability that I got accepted would theoretically be higher than that of EU students. After all, the school needs us to pay high tuition fees.

My motivation for applying to Sciences Po “International Energy Transitions”

I graduated from National Cheng Kung University’s Bachelor of Energy International Degree program, which is a department affiliated with the College of Engineering. I have always been very interested in the development of the energy field, but I gradually found that I did not like engineering courses. On the contrary, in my junior year, I took a class called “Energy Strategy and Policy”. The course content was mainly focused on the development of modern countries’ energy policies and the considerations behind making those decisions. I think this class was the most rewarding class for me during my bachelor studies. The professor was serious about the class and provided a lot of interesting extracurricular reading articles. I found that I enjoyed reading these papers. Therefore, at that time, I decided that if I wanted to study for a master’s degree in the future, I would like to specialize in the policy aspects of the energy field. By chance, I learned about the “International Energy Transitions” master’s program at the Sciences Po. After learning about the content of this master’s course, I think this is simply the best degree for me.

Application process

Since I do not have the nationality of an EU country, I must apply through the international graduate admissions procedure. First, I must meet the application prerequisites. To apply for a master’s program in the fall of 2024, Sciences Po requires a bachelor’s degree graduation score of higher than 87%. Or 3.5/4 or 3.5/4.3 or 4/5 (please click here for more information). If you have not graduated with a bachelor’s degree, you can submit your academic transcripts.

Grade requirement

Language ability is also a prerequisite.
If you study in a course taught entirely in English, you must have a TOEFL IBT score of 100 (IELTS, Cambridge and other tests are also accepted).
If you study a course taught entirely in French, you need to pass TCF 500 or DALF C1.
If you are enrolling in a double degree program, you will need to provide a language test certificate based on the language of instruction. For example: a double degree between Sciences Po and Freie Universität Berlin requires English and German test scores; a double degree between Sciences Po and Sorbonne University requires English and French test scores. In terms of scores, it is worth noting that French only requires TCF 400 or DELF B2.

Some programs also require the GRE or GMAT (please click here for more info)

If you pass all the prerequisites, you can start preparing to apply.
Sciences Po has a total of five rounds of applications each year, as of this year (excluding double degree programs, which have their own deadlines)

• Round 1: deadline: 29 October 2023, admission result: before 21 December 2023
• Round 2: deadline: 3 December 2023, admission result: before 22 February 2024
• Round 3: deadline: 7 January 2024, admission result: before 28 March 2024
• Round 4: deadline: 4 February 2024, admission result: before 18 April 2024
• Round 5: deadline: 25 February2024, admission result: before 30 May 2024

*Important! If you want to apply for a scholarship, you must apply in the first two rounds. In my case, the only scholarships I can apply for are the Eiffel scholarship and the Émile Boutmy scholarship. If you want to apply for the Eiffel Scholarship, you must complete the application in the 1st round. If you want to apply for the Émile Boutmy Scholarship, you must complete the application before the 2nd round (Round 1 + Round 2). Personally, I submitted my application in the first round. It is recommended that you apply as early as possible.

Sciences Po has an online application platform. After registering an account on that platform, follow its instructions to complete the application process. The following describes the information that needs to be filled in:

1. Basic personal information: What’s more interesting is that it asked me what my parents’ occupations were.
2. Academic background: Past study experience, etc., university and exchange student experience can be listed. It will ask for scores here to confirm whether the prerequisite is met. However, even if the prerequisite is not met, the application can still be sent. Sciences Po just wants to make money from the application fee, and there’s no way you’ll be admitted, so if your scores don’t meet the prerequisite, you can give up the application.
3. Work experience: List past internships and work experience, and describe them briefly. There is a character limit, so you cannot write too many words. A letter of recommendation from a supervisor is optional, but I personally have one.
4. Extracurricular experiences: whether you are a high-level athlete, whether you have completed military service or social service, whether you have international experience, and extracurricular activities. If so, please explain.
5. Language proficiency: Nothing special, just list all the languages ​​you know and attach the scores if you have a test.
6. Motivation letter: This is absolutely the most important. It must explain why you want to study this degree, why you are suitable, etc. If you apply for a French-taught program, you must write it in French. For double-degree programs, you must write one in two languages. Please note that there is a word limit for the motivation letter. My motivation letter this year can only have a maximum of 2,000 words. I basically wrote about my academic background in the beginning as a self-introduction, in which I explained what I studied for my bachelor degree (energy engineering) and what I did during my undergraduate studies (courses, internship, exchange semester…). And then I elaborated why I decided to apply to this program at Science Po. I included the reasons why Sciences Po is my best match, such as their interesting courses, speeches and conferences of the people working in energy industry worldwide. After this I wrote my study plan, such as what courses I will select, what student association I will want to join. The point is to make the admission team understand that I really did my research about Sciences Po and I made this decision not just because the reputation of the school. (I found a list of all the student association in the Paris campus. I have put the link here)
7. Financial background: It asked about the family’s annual income two years ago. This is one of the basis for scholarship. The lower the family income, the higher the chance of receiving scholarship. At this point it will also ask you if you wish to apply for a scholarship.
8. Pay the application fee of 150 euros (varies every year)

Since I wanted to talk about the recommendation letters more, I will explain the process in a separate paragraph.

Recommendation letters: At least two academic recommendation letters, which means professors from the school. You need to provide the e-mail addresses of the recommenders. The platform will automatically send a letter to the recommenders to complete the recommendation process. The recommendation process of Sciences Po is in a form of the questionnaire, the content and original text of the questionnaire are provided below:

1. You knew the candidate as: / Vous avez connu le candidat en qualité de :
2. How long have you known the candidate? Please do not exceed 2000 characters. / Depuis combien de temps connaissez-vous le candidat ? Merci de ne pas dépasser les 2000 caractères.
3. How big is the group you will compare the candidate to? Please do not exceed 2000 characters. / Quelle est la taille du groupe auquel vous allez comparer le candidat ? Merci de ne pas dépasser les 2000 caractères.
4. Which of your courses, seminars or conferences has the candidate attended? (please indicate the year, subject, number of hours, etc.) Please do not exceed 2000 characters. / Auxquels de vos cours, séminaires ou conférences le candidat a-t-il participé ? (veuillez indiquer l’année, le sujet, le nombre d’heures, etc.) Merci de ne pas dépasser les 2000 caractères.
5. Has the candidate produced dissertations or other written work for you as part of your teaching? (if yes, please indicate the nature, length, subject, grade obtained, etc.) Please do not exceed 2000 characters. / Le candidat a-t-il produit pour vous des dissertations ou autres travaux écrits dans le cadre de votre enseignement ? (si oui, merci d’indiquer la nature, la longueur, le sujet, la note obtenue, etc.) Merci de ne pas dépasser les 2000 caractères.
6. The sixth question is a table. Recommenders must check and answer, but they should all check extremely well~

7. Since you have known the candidate, in which areas have they made the most progress? In which area(s) do you think the candidate can still progress? / Depuis que vous connaissez le candidat, dans quels domaines a-t-il réalisé le plus de progrès ? Dans quel(s) domaine(s) pensez-vous que le candidat pourra encore progresser ?

8. We would like to know your assessment of the candidate’s personality, character and potential. Please indicate anything that seems relevant to you. Please do not exceed 2000 characters. /Nous souhaitons connaître votre appréciation quant à la personnalité du candidat, son caractère et son potentiel. Veuillez indiquer tout élément qui vous semble pertinent. Merci de ne pas dépasser les 2000 caractères.

9. Taking into account all aspects, my recommendation is: / Prenant en compte l’ensemble des aspects, ma recommandation est :

Here I recommend a Facebook group “Coaching Sciences Po Paris Master”. There are many students who are currently studying in Sciences Po. They will help others answer questions for free. Even if you don’t ask questions, you can learn a lot by watching other people’s questions. I learned some application skills, such as the questions on the recommendation letter questionnaire.

Finally, I will provide you with my time line for your reference:

1. Application sent on October 29, 2023 (Yeah~the last day of Round 1)
2. Admissibility letter received on November 23, 2023, notifying me that I passed the prerequisites.
3. Admission letter received on December 8, 2023

Thank you for reading. I hope it is helpful to you. If you have more questions, please feel free to comment or leave a message.