Greetings,
Does anyone know anything about CMS (preparatory year) at EPFL? How hard is it to get in for someone graduating from an American prep school? how hard the exam at the end of the year is and how many people pass?
General informational/reviews/insight on the program is also very appreciated!
It’s perfectly doable if you’ve had some calculus and all three sciences at a decent* level before.
(*not necessarily AP but not ‘gut’ either.)
To get into the CMS as an American, look on the swissuniversities website and find the US admissions requirements for EPFL. I’ve talked to a student from a US prep school who is in the program this year and he has found it very challenging - to say the least - but he’s passing the class. Totally theoretical - no labs even for the sciences. There were exams in February to continue to the second semester. Two students I know dropped the course in the first few weeks. I think about half the students who start complete the course and are then eligible to enter first year courses at EPFL.
How is your French? Even if you are conversational in French, if you have never studied math in French, that is a big transition as terminology and how the subject is taught are quite different.