Disappointed by your school? How to transfer, change or restart in France

There is no automatic “transfer” of a Bachelor year between schools in France. Moving from Bachelor 1 to Bachelor 2 in a different school is an application on file to the receiving institution, which judges your case on the academic content - not simply on the fact that you validated a year.

What is typically asked for:

• Your relevé de notes (transcript), showing your ECTS credits;
• A full application file and a lettre de motivation;
• Sometimes an interview and/or entrance tests.

Two practical questions to settle early: are you trying to move mid-year or for the next academic year, and does the receiving school have an intake capacity / a pedagogical commission that validates prior learning for your target year? These vary by institution, so confirm them on the official page of the specific school you are targeting.

The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is the tool of the European Higher Education Area that makes studies and courses transparent, and that allows “credits taken at one higher education institution to be counted towards a qualification studied for at another”.

Study	ECTS
One full year	60 ECTS
One semester	30 ECTS
Licence / Bachelor	180 ECTS
Master	120 ECTS

Three documents do the heavy lifting when credits move between institutions:

• Learning Agreement (contrat d’études) - facilitates the recognition and transfer of credits during a mobility period;
• Transcript of Records (relevé de notes) - documents the credits you obtained;
• ECTS Users’ Guide - the detailed description of the system and how it is applied.

Important nuance: ECTS make your workload and learning outcomes readable across the EHEA, but recognition - i.e. validating those credits to enter another programme - remains the decision of the receiving institution. A credit proves a volume of work and learning; it does not create an automatic admission.

Réorientation via Parcoursup (restart in a first year)

A student already enrolled in higher education can re-register on Parcoursup to switch toward a first-year programme (L1, BUT, BTS, prépa, post-bac school…) for the following year, through the usual Parcoursup procedure (main phase, then complementary phase). Parcoursup lets you indicate that you are a student in réorientation. Confirm the exact 2026 calendar (file opening, wishes period, main admission phase, complementary phase) on the official site before you commit.

Réorientation into a Master via Mon Master

Entry into the first year of a Master goes through the national platform monmaster.gouv.fr. Indicative 2026–2027 calendar from the official sources:

Step	Date(s)
Information on programmes + candidate account creation opens	2 Feb 2026
Application window on monmaster.gouv.fr	17 Feb → 16 Mar 2026
Institutions review applications	from 21 Mar 2026
Results published (excl. apprenticeship)	3 Jun 2026
Main admission phase	3 → 16 Jun 2026
Apprenticeship-track results	12 Jun 2026

Complementary-phase dates and line-by-line 2026 dates should be confirmed on the official MESR calendar page.

The “saisine du recteur” safeguard (right to continue into a Master)

If you hold a French national Licence and are refused everywhere, you may have a right to continue into a 2nd cycle. Three cumulative conditions: (1) you hold a French national Licence (or a recognised equivalent) obtained in the last 3 years; (2) you applied on Mon Master during the main phase; and (3) you received a refusal to ALL your applications. The recteur of the académie where the Licence was obtained must then propose 3 admission offers compatible with your project. Note: holders of a licence professionnelle, a BUT, or a foreign diploma are not eligible for the saisine du recteur.

The année de césure (gap year) - keep your place

A césure lets you temporarily suspend your studies to gain professional or personal experience, while staying enrolled and keeping your student status and your place.

• Who: any student enrolled in higher education, from the 1st year onward.
• How long: minimum 1 semester, maximum 2 consecutive semesters, starting at a semester intake. One césure per study cycle.
• What you can do: training in another field; a professional experience / internship in France or abroad; a service civique (national service, international or European volunteering); or creating an activity as a student-entrepreneur.
• Your rights: you stay enrolled, keep your student card, reduced registration fees for national diplomas, and possibly your scholarship depending on the activity and the institution’s agreement.
• Legal basis: Code de l’éducation, articles D611-13 to D611-20. The césure is at the student’s initiative and requires the head of the institution’s agreement, based on the quality and coherence of the project.

Continuing into France via Campus France / Études en France

If you are studying abroad in a country covered by the Études en France (EEF) procedure and want to continue your studies in France, you go through this procedure. The official wording is explicit: “If you wish to continue your studies in France from the second or third year of a Bachelor’s degree or for a Master’s degree, you must follow the ‘Études en France’ procedure until you obtain a student visa.”

What this means in practice: you apply to a specific year / programme (L2, L3, M1…). There is no “free transfer” - it is an admission decided by the receiving institution. One exemption: you do not need the Campus France procedure if you are already in France with a valid residence permit.

ENIC-NARIC: the attestation de comparabilité

To make a foreign qualification readable to French institutions, you can request a document from ENIC-NARIC France (at France Éducation international). There are two: an attestation de comparabilité (for a diploma) and an attestation de reconnaissance de période d’études (for partial, non-degree studies).

• The procedure is 100% online via the Phoenix platform.
• Cost: €20 when you submit the request, then €100 at the expert-evaluation stage. Free for refugees, asylum seekers and beneficiaries of subsidiary/temporary protection.
• Process: pay €20 → admissibility check → if admissible, pay €100 → expert evaluation → the attestation is delivered as a PDF, electronically.

Crucial point: the attestation certifies a comparability of level - it is not an automatic equivalence and not an admission. Each institution remains autonomous in deciding whether to admit you.

If you also need the residence-permit angle (VLS-TS validation, informing the préfecture when you change institution, the multi-year student permit), check service-public.gouv.fr and france-visas.gouv.fr for your situation.

Before you switch toward a programme, check the official insertion data - not marketing brochures. The real sources:

Source	Covers	What it gives
InserSup (MESR / SIES)	Higher-education graduates	Professional insertion measured by matching administrative files + DSN, at 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30 months after graduation.
InserJeunes (DEPP / Éducation nationale)	Vocational track, CAP → BTS	Employment and continuation indicators per establishment. Official figure: among 2024 leavers (CAP–BTS) not continuing studies, 41% in salaried employment in January 2025 (6 months out).
CGE enquête insertion (Conférence des grandes écoles)	Grandes écoles graduates	2025 report (graduates 2024): net employment rate at 6 months ≈ 80.2%, 83.5% on permanent contracts (CDI).
OVE (Observatoire national de la vie étudiante)	Student living conditions	National triennial reference survey (part of the European Eurostudent programme). Less about strict insertion, more the reference on student life; universities’ local observatories also publish insertion surveys by diploma.

Onisep and the Parcoursup programme pages also display débouchés / success-rate elements; INSEE republishes the InserSup data.