Preventing the wolf from taking on sheep's clothing

The ESSEC business school was the first institution to transform its Grande Ecole programme for students arriving from either certain preparatory schools or from other areas of study (such as engineering, medicine or law) into an MBA. Is this a new sign of the so-called Americanisation which is increasingly gaining a foothold in business schools and which runs the risk of making them lose their identity or rather, as Nicolas Mottis suggests, is this the means of achieving international recognition without losing one's national identity? He shows how the evolution of the American model enables one to create a blend of the French Grande Ecole and the MBA programmes. The success of such a strategy depends on the educational methods which allow young people to take advantage of their professional experiences. The road to international recognition is dependent on the quality of the students selected and the implementation of this original training programme.