Morocco's Baccalaureat and Concours for Grandes Ecoles

The Baccalaureat as your starting point

The Moroccan Baccalaureat, set by the Ministere de l'Education Nationale, is the exam every student sits at the end of secondary school. It is scored out of 20 and comes in several streams, including Sciences Mathematiques, Sciences Physiques, Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre, Sciences Economiques, and Lettres, among others. Your stream and your average shape which higher education paths are realistically open to you.

For most public university faculties, the Bac itself is your ticket in. Faculties of science, law, letters, and economics operate open access (acces ouvert), meaning any Bac holder can register without sitting a further exam, though your stream needs to match the faculty's requirements and your average matters for which specific program or campus takes you.

Regulated access programs

Some public institutions do not take students on the Bac alone. Medical schools, engineering schools such as the ENSA network, and business schools such as the ENCG network use regulated access (acces reglemente), which means an additional dossier review, entrance exam, or both, on top of your Bac average and stream. These programs are shorter routes into professional fields than the classes preparatoires path, and competition for seats is high given how few spots each school offers compared to demand.

Classes Preparatoires aux Grandes Ecoles (CPGE)

Top-performing Bac holders, especially in scientific and economic streams, can apply to CPGE, a two-year intensive track that prepares students for entry into Morocco's most selective grande ecoles of engineering, commerce, and management. Admission into CPGE itself is by dossier, meaning your Bac grades and secondary school record, not a separate entrance exam at this stage.

CPGE splits into three main tracks: scientific classes (feeding into engineering concours), economic and commercial classes (feeding into business school concours), and literary classes. Within the scientific track, specializations include streams such as MP, PSI, and TSI, each preparing students for a slightly different set of target schools.

The Concours National Commun (CNC)

At the end of the second CPGE year, students sit the Concours National Commun, the CNC, the main national competition for admission into Moroccan grande ecoles of engineering and into large management and commerce schools. The CNC includes written exams across the core subjects of your CPGE track, plus an oral component known as TIPE. It is organized annually in May.

For the 2025 cycle, online registration for the CNC opened on February 3, 2025, and closed on March 3, 2025, ahead of the May exam sitting, according to the official CPGE Maroc concours national portal . Your rank in the CNC, not your original Bac score alone, is what determines which grande ecole you are offered a place in, since schools set their own cutoff ranks each year based on available seats and applicant numbers.

Choosing your route

If your goal is a specific selective school such as medicine or an ENCG, look at that school's own admission requirements early, since some run their own concours separate from the CNC and set their own registration windows. If your goal is a top engineering or management grande ecole and you have a strong Bac average in a scientific or economic stream, CPGE followed by the CNC is the standard path, though it demands two demanding years before you sit the concours itself.

If neither selective route fits your goals, open-access public faculties remain a full and legitimate path to a university degree in Morocco, with far larger enrollment capacity and no extra entrance exam standing between your Bac and your first semester.