The École normale supérieure de Rennes, also called ENS Rennes is a French scientific grande école, belonging to the network of écoles normales supérieures established according to the model of the École normale supérieure in Paris. Like its sister universities, its mandate lies in training students with a view to careers in academia, engineering and government.
Established by a decree of the 17 October 2013 of the Prime Minister, the ENS Rennes is placed under the direct authority of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and is a founder of the European University of Brittany. Before 2013, it was a branch of the École normale supérieure de Paris-Saclay, but the great geographical distance between Cachan and Rennes gradually led to its being granted a greater level of autonomy.
The school is divided into five departments, which have a yearly intake of eighty to 100 normaliens, i. e. students who are granted the status of paid civil servants. Like the other grandes écoles in the French higher education system, these students are selected through highly selective entrance examinations called concours, after at least two years of preparatory tuition in schools known as classes préparatoire aux grandes écoles. As well as these paid students; the school also admits attendees called magistériens, including international students. These two groups of students, despite their different status, receive similar tuition over a four-year period. The ENS Rennes records high levels of success in steering its students towards research-oriented careers; indeed, more than eighty percent of any year-group take and pass the agrégation, a French national competitive examination for entrance into careers in academia, and some seventy percent go on to undertake a PhD program.
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