Master's degree or a doctorate, a partner college or institute such as the École des mines de Paris or ENSAE, or a specialization institute such as Supaéro in Toulouse or ENSPM in Rueil-Malmaison. The reason for this is that the generic education provided at Polytechnique is more focused on developing thinking skills than on preparing students for the transition to a real engineering career, which requires more advanced technical training. Class rank and career path The grades of the second year of the curriculum are used to rank the students. Traditionally, this individual exit ranking was very important for the French students of the École Polytechnique, and certain peculiarities in the organization of studies and ranking can be attributed to the need for equity among students. For French nationals, this ranking is part of a government recruitment program: a certain number of places in civil or military Corps, including elite civil servant such as the Corps des Mines or Corps of Bridges, Waters and Forests, are open to students each year. These specific corps of civil servants, which provide the senior executives of the public administration, are open only to students of the École Polytechnique and to rare students of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. At some point in their studies, students make a list of the corps they wish to enter in order of preference, and they are enrolled in the highest corps according to their ranking. The next step for these French polytechnicians is to join one of the four technical schools of the civil service: École des mines, École des ponts et chaussées, Télécom ParisTech, ENSTA Paris or ENSAE, thus joining one of the civil service bodies known as grands corps techniques de l'État. Those who follow this path are called as X-Mines, X-Ponts, X-Télécoms and X-INSEE respectively. Since the X2000 reform, the importance of rank has diminished. With the exception of the corps curriculum, the universities and schools where polytechniciens complete their training now base their acceptance decisions on the transcripts of all grades. Of the 47% of graduates who decide to pursue a professional career in the private sector, the majority (58%) are based in the Greater Paris area, 8% in the rest of France, while 34% are based outside France. Only 12% of the cohort work under a non-French employment contract. École Polytechnique students earn an average of €44,000 per year after graduation.. Tuition and