multi-disciplinary education at an institute of political science". The Law courses at Sciences Po have also received criticism for holding lower standards than those at full law degrees; a student both at Sciences Po and at Paris II told L'Express: "In Law (at Paris II), I spend three days on an essay and I have 8 (out of 20); at Sciences Po, I spend three hours on an essay and I have 16 (out of 20)." In 2012, lecturers at Sciences Po criticized instructions they received from the school telling them not to take into account grammar mistakes in their marking. The trend would furthermore be a decline of the level; according to Le Monde, the cause would be the 2001 "Equal Opportunity Programme", but a lecturer in the school stated in 2021 that the reason is more the desire to attract international students and therefore the need to mark more leniently: all marks are harmonized so that the average mark would always be the same. The school has also been criticized for its close-mindedness and for its self-persuasion to be an elite institution. Libération stated in an editorial that the school have not understood that it is not special in the outside world. Peter Gumbel called Sciences Po and other "Grandes Écoles" "elite colleges [which] have become a machine for perpetuating a brilliant but blinkered, often arrogant and frequently incompetent ruling freemasonry". The academic Gilles Devers criticized the institution for being the "base of the conservatism, and the mold of the molluscs that make the public elite" where "dissenting ideas are only admitted if they strengthen the system". Sciences Po has also been accused of being unduly helped by the media and politicians. "Almost every French newspaper is run by an alumnus of Sciences Po", and most of the journalists in France are alumni from Sciences Po, so it would give the school "an unparalleled media coverage" and permit it to "cultivate a culture of secrecy" about its internal affairs. "Sciences-Po is under-criticized," analyzes a professor for Mediapart, "Those who teach there have no interest, and not necessarily the urge, to do so. Those who are not there can hope to be there one day." The journalist Ariane Chemin stated in 2013 that, because so many journalists come from Sciences Po, the school has an unduly good public reputation. The institute has also been criticized for the unfair favoritism