Becoming an ENSTA engineer while pursuing a career as an artist or elite athlete

Institute, Training, Student Life Paris-Saclay & Brest
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Students from the Diagonale MPSI preparatory class visited the ENSTA Paris-Saclay Campus on March 23

They are accomplished athletes who love math. They possess a distinct artistic talent and aspire to combine it with earning a recognized engineering degree. These young people are artists and elite athletes, and excellence is inherent in the practice of their sport or art. It is for these specific profiles that ENSTA and ENPC have just opened a new pathway to their engineering programs.

The creation of this new recruitment pathway stems from a widely held view: preparing for entrance exams to engineering schools is difficult to reconcile with the training, competition, and performance schedules of elite athletes and artists.

By offering a dedicated admissions program, ENSTA and ENPC—ranked among France’s top engineering schools—aim to diversify and adapt access to their programs for talented students whose backgrounds demonstrate exceptional commitment.

This is typically the case for students in the Diagonale prep program, which offers a three-year preparatory course in small classes with flexible schedules; they visited ENSTA’s Paris-Saclay campus on March 23.

Thomas Loiseleux, Director of Education and Research, introducing ENSTA to students in the Diagonale preparatory program
Inès Vitrac Garcia, swimmer
Alexandre Limousin, musical practice and conducting
Léonie Mahieu, Junior World Champion in the team pursuit
Estera Poschina Rusu, harpist

“I’ve always refused to compromise. Even back in high school at the International School of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the American program, I took 10 hours of English in addition to my regular classes while continuing to swim. Sports don’t just build physical fitness; they also strengthen your mental resilience and help you develop organizational skills and the ability to push yourself.”

“Having been passionate about science and the arts since childhood, it has always seemed inconceivable to me that I should have to sacrifice my musical and artistic pursuits for the sake of my studies. I apply the same rigor to both fields, which reinforce one another, and I hope to see the arts and sciences complement one another as I continue on my journey.”

“I am very interested in the defense and security engineering program offered by ENSTA and accessible through this new admissions track. It would allow me to continue competing in my sport at a high level and achieve success while pursuing an excellent education in a field that I am passionate about.”

“After having the opportunity to be in a music-focused class with a flexible schedule in middle school, I enrolled in a traditional high school, but that left me no time to practice the harp. So I enrolled at École Diagonale, where I naturally continued on to the preparatory program, with the clear goal of gaining admission to an engineering school such as ENSTA while continuing to play the harp.”

Are you an artist or a top-level athlete?

To apply for ENSTA’s General Engineering program or Defense and Security Engineering program through this new admissions track, please use the links below to access the call for applications and the application form to be completed.

Application deadline: April 10, 2026

The Brest campus is already home to elite athletes with remarkable careers, including Martin and Alexandre Kowalski, who are aiming for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, as well as Gaspard Carfantan (iQFoil windsurfing), Marin Le Nours (6.50 sailing), and Benoît Merceur (windfoil and windsurfing).
 

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