= École Polytechnique {c} {wiki} The "most prestigious French engineering school". Only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_École_Polytechnique_alumni#Nobel_laureates[3 Nobels] though as of 2019, the scientists are mostly at <École normale supérieure (Paris)>. A https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/where-do-worlds-top-ceos-go-university[gazillion CEOs] ad politicians however. [studied there] from 2010 to 2013. Ciro considers him [entering at Polytechnique a small miracle]. First, on his second year of [University in Brazil], he first had to fail to join the also good but not as good https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_des_%C3%89coles_centrales[École centrales], which really annoyed him as he saw the "other good students" who wanted to go out get their wish. This also explains why there are so few students from his university going to Polytechnique in the late 2010's: most already went to other locations! Then, on his third year, he tried Polytechnique and got in despite feeling that the others who got in knew much more mathematics and physics than him. Rather, Ciro believes that he got in chiefly due to his [intense passion for the sciences] which he showed during the interview. The miracle would have been even greater if it had happened in 2020. At this time, out of 10 , 9 are from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instituto_Tecnológico_de_Aeronáutica[ITA], the "hardest to get into" university in Brazil, and also military like Polytechnique. Make no mistake, those students are amazing and deserve it without any doubt. But there is more to the story. It could be argued that many of them only go because they don't have any other choice of exchange program. Remember: Ciro had to fail applications on previous universities before getting into Polytech. Also, they don't get any Brazilian degree because ITA has no agreements with Polytechnique, and are therefore extremely likely to never come back. [Not that Ciro thinks this is particularly bad for Brazil though], but it does make for a better deal for France overall as well. They also happen to have closer ties across cohorts of different years, and have managed to maintain a Google Doc with scanned past examinations (as of 2020 however, http://www.brasilnax.com/material-de-preparaccedilatildeo.html[some/all of those examinations have been uploaded publicly], big kudos to them). Also almost all of them are software engineers, which is one of the few disciplines given at the relatively small ITA. This lack of diversity might not be : if I were France, I would rather fish around all top Brazilian schools for "the best". Besides the amazing funding/opportunities/alumni/staff loop which you can read about elsewhere, Polytechnique is amazing because you can [choose what you will study every year to a very large extent]. This is in huge contrast to the crappy systems Ciro had seen e.g. in Brazil's , where students have to decide basically all their courses in huge packages, either at university entry (thus when they are completely clueless), or at a single point inside the university studies, changes being much harder. Life quality was also amazing. Good free accommodation on campus and at the time a no-obligations scholarship for every foreign student great sport facilities. It seems that after Ciro left however more restrictions are added to the scholarships, what a shame! As of 2020 not everyone gets scholarships anymore it seems, mostly only loans that have to be paid back later. And those who are not poor have to pay Polytechnique scholarship fees on top of their living costs. And thus French austerity measures are undermining the greatest long term investment a country can possibly make: that of importing the very best students from other countries into yours. This after their host country has already spent 20 years raising and selecting them. And you won't even pay them 2 years of frugal existence to steal some of them them. Even if those students move away from your country later on, the contacts they made in your country mean they are much more likely to bring businesses over. But some will stay. Basically, [France is becoming more like the United States]. This also makes it much more difficult for those students to do a afterwards, where they would get paid very little, and are unable to pay their student debts. A PhD would be where they would possibly [bring more of the next big thing to your country]. Instead, they are much more likely to just go work for some big company [data wrangling] and bring nothing to your country but their student debt dividends instead, which they will be pay to pay for in one year with those amazing salaries. And unsurprisingly many go to into . What a big time fail, . Sport was mandatory due to the military nature of the school. This did have the upside of getting students together more, although Ciro is [against all forms of forced intellectual of physical activities for students.] If you liked your sport it would be really cool though. But due to {full}, he was forced to give up his first beloved choice which was ... life can be cruel. If only Ciro had known at at the time, and if only that had been one of the sports you could choose (but of course it isn't, no school will want the bad reputation of [when one of their students gets killed in a car accident]). There were also some useless "military exercises", or special situations in which you had to wear the useless school uniform as a formal "respect social clothing". is completely against all that meaningless bullshit, this his just a form of theatrical masturbation to nostalgically remember the good old days of when France still ruled the world, and [before they tortured the Algerians], see also: