Sciences Po Paris (IEP)

If you take Economics, get Schlacter as your maitre de conference; he's fantastic Christophe Jamin is also brilliant for law / law and economics

You are worked into the ground and the admin is a disaster - we had end of year exams before the end of teaching. But overall fairly good feedback and lots of continous assessment, if you like that. Signing up for courses is also a bit difficult - you have to be on line the moment inscription opens and have a priority list and lots of alternatives as you won't always get your first choices. Courses with French students are marked harder than courses with just international students.

No

It's a place to study mopre than anything else - so recommendable as such, but look for your social life outside. There are a lot of international students from all over Europe and the world though, which can be exciting - we took the opportunity to set up a Europe-wide student organisation and organise a one-week conference!

Better French

Work hard

I enjoyed staying with a French family, but the experience can be challenging. Generally, you experience far more of the culture that way, with ample opportunities to improve your language skills, and learn many of the small things (table manners, talking to children vs. adults, etc.) that translate into real cultural fluency. At the same time, most of us were used to living on our own, and adjusting to family life can cause frictions. I'd stay with a family again, were I to repeat the experience, but would probably spend half the year there, and the other half in independent lodgings (like the Cite Universitaire).

Sciences Po is a rather unique institution in many ways, and has played an important role in French politics for many years. Academically, the program was challenging, but what you got out depended entirely on what you put in. The entrance exams can seem onerous, but I'd recommend giving it a shot if you're interested.