French universities are pretty terrible, bare bones and rigid with a narrow major focus and no campus life, no guidance. You get what you pay for, and it's not much at all. The vast majority of programs would require near native French level. Your employment prospects will be low as well without some form of grad school.

Grandes Ecoles are different, hard to get into, also highly specialized so you have to really know what you want to do and not switch. There are more programs in English (especially for business) but you need to research that meticulously. Cost is not free/ as super low depending on which school and set up for tuition (residency v. nationality, some like business schools are private and more money for everyone...) I'd only recommend that for someone very independent and mature with a clear path and goals, like business, engineering.

The French government is destroying most of the funding for public universities right now, would highly recommend against

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are any on your kids interested in going to college in Europe or have any of your kids gone to college in Europe? If so how is it going/what were the applications like?
My son wants to go and he has a French citizenship so it would be WAY cheaper and probably good culturally.

I think many of the families in your situation who have bright, motivated, sane, sober kids are going with the EU schools because the costs are so much lower.

The kids I know who did this are just now graduating into a terrible job market for young people, and none has come back to the U.S. But they had a good time and learned a lot.

If they were on track to get into some place like Tufts here, without a lot of outside boosting, they probably have a solid enough education to do well in the equivalent university in the EU. So, good U.S. students who work hard are fine by EU standards, too.

Especially if you have some family in France, sending your kid there isn’t that much more extreme than sending a kid to UCLA.

It's certainly a whole lot cheaper for a French citizen!

Anonymous wrote:Are any on your kids interested in going to college in Europe or have any of your kids gone to college in Europe? If so how is it going/what were the applications like?
My son wants to go and he has a French citizenship so it would be WAY cheaper and probably good culturally.

I think many of the families in your situation who have bright, motivated, sane, sober kids are going with the EU schools because the costs are so much lower.

The kids I know who did this are just now graduating into a terrible job market for young people, and none has come back to the U.S. But they had a good time and learned a lot.

If they were on track to get into some place like Tufts here, without a lot of outside boosting, they probably have a solid enough education to do well in the equivalent university in the EU. So, good U.S. students who work hard are fine by EU standards, too.

Especially if you have some family in France, sending your kid there isn’t that much more extreme than sending a kid to UCLA.

Anonymous wrote:I am also interested in this and like OP asked, do you need over 4.0 GPA’s and a bunch of extracurriculars like in the United States or is it less harsh there?

You know Europe is not a single country and it has hundreds of universities. Some are very hard to get into and others are not, just like the USA. The emphasis on extracurriculars, however, is less.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not Europe so much at our private, but Canada is very hot right now!

McGill
U of T (and there's a variety of colleges you apply to within it)
UBC
Queen's
Western

Waterloo - for engineers

If only OP had asked about Canadian colleges, this might actually be useful. Would you also like to share your thoughts about universities in New Zealand?

Well OP said her DC has French citizenship so she might be interested to know that French citizens can apply and get FREE TUITION at McGill if accepted. (Quebec has a special arrangement with France.)

I am also interested in this and like OP asked, do you need over 4.0 GPA’s and a bunch of extracurriculars like in the United States or is it less harsh there?

Anonymous wrote:Not Europe so much at our private, but Canada is very hot right now!

McGill
U of T (and there's a variety of colleges you apply to within it)
UBC
Queen's
Western

Waterloo - for engineers

If only OP had asked about Canadian colleges, this might actually be useful. Would you also like to share your thoughts about universities in New Zealand?

Trinity College Dublin would be a good option for someone with an EU passport. At least worth looking into.

Other than that, our school sends several each year to Uk universities, but an EU passport is irrelevant for the UK.

Not Europe so much at our private, but Canada is very hot right now!

McGill
U of T (and there's a variety of colleges you apply to within it)
UBC
Queen's
Western

Waterloo - for engineers

Anonymous wrote:If the student is interested in Stem look at the Swiss Universities- ETH and EPFL in particular.

Polytechnique is France is pretty good.

If the student is interested in Stem look at the Swiss Universities- ETH and EPFL in particular.

Anonymous wrote:Are any on your kids interested in going to college in Europe or have any of your kids gone to college in Europe? If so how is it going/what were the applications like?
My son wants to go and he has a French citizenship so it would be WAY cheaper and probably good culturally.

If he has French citizenship, then he needs to speak with his French family, who would know. Why is mommy (or daddy) driving this? (And here I thought the helicopter/scaffolding/tiger parents were Asian….or are you Asian and the other parent is French?)

Europe is a big place with many countries/universities. There are many threads you can search from this forum where application processes to UK universities are discussed.

France has several stellar universities but I haven’t seen much discussion of them here. Why don’t you google a few names of French universities and look at the criteria to apply?
Or better yet tell your kid to do it and report back to you.

Are any on your kids interested in going to college in Europe or have any of your kids gone to college in Europe? If so how is it going/what were the applications like?
My son wants to go and he has a French citizenship so it would be WAY cheaper and probably good culturally.