EPFL: requirements, calendar and fees with a French baccalauréat

Two things have changed in Lausanne, and they target families in the French system more than anyone else.

Since the autumn 2025 intake, the first year of the bachelor's programme has been capped at 3,000 places. EPFL has explained publicly why: in thirteen years, the number of students arriving with a foreign school-leaving certificate rose by 233 per cent, and more than nine in ten of them come from France. The expected reduction in admissions is around 20 per cent. At the same time, the semester fee for foreign students was tripled.

This article sets out exactly what it takes to get in, what happens if you fall short, and on which dates. Everything comes from EPFL's own pages and regulations.

Seven subjects, and two thresholds

The French baccalauréat (the French school-leaving exam) falls into the category of European certificates. On its own, it is not enough. It must meet a list of conditions, all of them compulsory, and admission then remains subject to the number of places available.

That last line is the one families read too quickly. Meeting the requirements does not give you a place, only the right to be ranked: EPFL selects on the overall average of the certificate, within the limit of available places. And it publishes neither the number of applications nor the average of the last candidate admitted, in any year. So no one can tell you whether 16 is enough or whether you need 17, and be wary of anyone who claims to.

One sentence in the FAQ is also worth knowing for families who build a plan from seconde (the first year of lycée, the French upper secondary school): there is no guarantee that the requirements will stay the same from one year to the next. They are updated in January for the following September intake.

The physique-chimie trap

One technical point is rarely explained, yet it sinks entire applications.

EPFL writes that a subject combining two disciplines under a single title, with a single mark, cannot satisfy two separate requirements. It gives the example itself: physique-chimie (physics and chemistry taught as one subject) cannot satisfy both the physics requirement and the chemistry requirement.

Yet the French spécialité (an advanced subject chosen for the last two years) is called, as it happens, physique-chimie. It therefore covers physics, and chemistry or biology must be found elsewhere. This is where the six-out-of-seven rule leaves some room, although EPFL does not specify which of the seven may be missing beyond mathematics and physics, which are compulsory. If your child drops SVT (life and earth sciences, the French biology subject) at the end of première (the penultimate year of lycée, before terminale, the final year), check this point before choosing their spécialités, not after.

And if you don't reach 80%?

This is the question every family asks, and the answer is harsher than what you read everywhere else.

A nuance on the classes préparatoires (the two-year French preparatory classes for the grandes écoles). EPFL admits, on file, into the second year, candidates who have successfully completed at least one year in a programme it considers equivalent. But it adds a condition many people overlook: they must also meet the first-year entry requirements, in other words the famous 80 per cent in the baccalauréat. The only EPFL brochure that names the French prépas, with the abbreviations MPSI and PCSI, dates from 2017, points to an address that no longer exists and contradicts the current deadlines. Do not rely on it.

The calendar

It is published without a year, identical every year.

Two further rules are worth knowing. Dual enrolment with another university is forbidden, and you must prove you have withdrawn by 30 September. And a candidate admitted under the cap on places cannot change section before the start of term, whereas others can.

What it costs, and what has tripled

The application costs CHF 150 with a foreign certificate, non-refundable.

The semester fee used to be CHF 780. Since autumn 2025, the part known as the tuition contribution, CHF 730, has been tripled for foreign students. It rises to CHF 2,190, which makes CHF 2,240 per semester and CHF 4,480 per year.

Exempt are Swiss nationals, and foreign nationals who prove they were already living in Switzerland before the start of their studies for professional, family or protection reasons. A French baccalauréat holder who moves to Lausanne to study is therefore fully affected.

On top of this comes the cost of living, which EPFL itself puts at CHF 2,107 per month for a foreign student, or CHF 25,219 per year, including CHF 900 for accommodation. A rental deposit of several months is usually required as well. Note that the website gives three different totals depending on the page, CHF 25,000, CHF 29,000 and CHF 30,000: take the highest when building a budget.

Language

A reassuring point for a French-speaking family, and not well known: the first year of the bachelor's programme is taught in French, with at most one course in English per semester. Only from the second year can study plans include up to half of their courses in English. A French baccalauréat holder is exempt from the language certificate required of other candidates.

Why French baccalauréat holders fall behind in the first semester

This is the point families discover too late, and it has nothing to do with admission.

A French baccalauréat holder arrives in Lausanne with a broad mathematics syllabus. They have seen a lot. What they lack is the depth of calculation and the rigour of proof that the first semester demands straight away. French lycées have cut mathematics teaching hours, removed part of the technical calculation, and shifted the effort towards modelling. EPFL, for its part, has changed nothing in its expectations.

Three gaps come up again and again with the pupils I work with:

• Algebraic manipulation. Handling a long expression without error, without a calculator, under time pressure. A French pupil goes through terminale with a calculator within reach. The first semester takes it away.
• Proof. Writing a complete proof, with quantifiers and edge cases. The French baccalauréat asks pupils to justify, not to prove. It is not the same exercise.
• Pace. The weekly volume of independent work expected exceeds anything a very good terminale pupil has ever produced. Those who fail are rarely the least gifted; they are often the ones who never had to work.

I draw one rule from this for the families I work with: useful preparation starts in première, not after admission. A pupil aiming for Lausanne must have done, before arriving, the calculation and proof work that their lycée will not ask of them.

The figures EPFL keeps to itself

Three are missing, and they matter:

• No admission rate, no number of applications, no cut-off average since the cap was introduced. There is no way to know where the bar sits.
• The first-year pass rate is not a published statistic. The only official figure available, a pass rate of 51.5 per cent, comes from an internal interview in 2022. A 2018 presentation also indicated that 45 per cent of new students finished their first semester below the 3.5 mark. The 60 per cent failure figures circulating everywhere have no official source.
• EPFL refers country-by-country interpretation to an external website it does not control, and itself warns that it is updated only once a year in January, so it may be out of date when the form opens in November.

For the long-term strategy, the choice between Lausanne and prépa, the comparison with Zurich and the preparation timeline from seconde onwards, read our dedicated analysis on getting into EPFL from a French lycée.