HEC Paris

HEC Paris or Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris is one of the foremost business schools in France and in Europe. It was created in 1881 by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the model of French Grandes Ecoles and has progressively become one of the most selective graduate schools in Europe. It has been consistently ranked as the best business school in Europe by the Financial Times since the ranking's inception.

HEC is the business school of ParisTech, a gathering of top-ranked Grandes Ecoles willing to create a collegiate university by the year 2020.

The school grants a Grande Ecole degree (MSc in Management), pre-experience master’s degrees, an MBA, two EMBA and offers a PhD program. It has several double degree agreements (Engineering, Law, Economics, Public Affairs...) with foreign business schools and universities as well as other French institutions.

As well as other top French Grandes Ecoles, HEC’s reputation relies on its highly competitive entrance exam, a concours jointly organized with other French business schools. Among the 9,500 students seating the concours after 2 years of preparatory classes, HEC has an admission rate of 4% and a yield of 99%.

HEC is among the few Grandes Ecoles and is known to educate Europe's top executives and political elite, and has many notable alumni in business and politics. In 2011, 12 of the 40 largest French publicly traded companies have an alumnus of HEC Paris as CEO (or equivalent). With regards to the number of CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies, HEC ranks as the 4th higher education institution in the world, and the 1st in Europe.