In the middle of the Parcoursup process, some schools are playing on the fear and stress of high school students to circumvent the official rules of the platform. Julie Mleczko, orientation specialist, explains to us how not to fall into the trap.
The admission phase on Parcoursup is officially launched, and it is the moment that future students and parents fear the most: the moment when choices have to be made. And above all, the good ones. Between the approaching bac exams and the need to prepare for their future, students are under enormous pressure… and some establishments do not hesitate to take advantage of it. However, Julie Mleczko, editor-in-chief of Studyrama and Parcoursup specialist, reminds us that the main thing is to “don’t rush” and above all not to give in to the intimidation tactics of schools.
In fact, candidates have two days to respond to an admission proposal on Parcoursup, which leaves “time for reflection” before definitively accepting training. However, in panic, some people sometimes choose “the easy way out” by validating the first proposal they receive, for fear of not obtaining others. “The platform offers the opportunity to say ‘yes’, while keeping other wishes pending, so take the time. In any case, there is a timetable which must be respected by the establishments”specifies the orientation expert. But in reality, “some establishments are pushing hard”by playing on the fear of the candidates to encourage them to definitively accept the proposal before the end of the legal deadline.
Indeed, in order to “close quickly” their numbers, certain schools (generally private and lucrative) do not hesitate to contact candidates and their families several times, by email or by telephone, claiming the need for a rapid response to guarantee a place. Others even go so far as to engage in financial blackmail, forcing parents’ hands to pay deposits. But these aggressive and misleading commercial practices are completely illegal. “There are rules to follow on Parcoursup. Several establishments have been rejected because of this. Don’t let yourself be fooled by pressure, it’s forbidden.” warns Julie Mleczko.
In an interview for The Parisian in 2025, the Minister of Higher Education revealed that a “little fortnight” training courses were excluded from Parcoursup for this reason. New control and dereferencing procedures have also been put in place to better identify (and therefore remove) schools not respecting the charter. This big clean-up started last year continues today with a bill “relating to the regulation of private higher education”, which has just been adopted by the Senate this Monday 1er June 2026, and which will soon be examined by the National Assembly. This text aims in particular to “making the presence on Parcoursup the true guarantee of quality delivered by the State”. Ultimately, all training available on the platform will have to be certified by an independent body, namely the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres).
Concretely, if the State intends to hunt down fraudulent training courses, some still manage to circumvent the rules and take advantage of the stress of high school graduates to fill their benches. Julie Mleczko hammers it home again: “There’s no point living 24 hours a day on Parcoursup, there are alerts to remind you when a response deadline is about to expire. You’ve worked hard throughout this entire application period, it’s been long. Now that you’re there, take the time to think.”
