How to Get Into UBC From France: Bac, English Test, Profile
If you are in a French lycée and applying to UBC, four things decide the file: your bulletins de première and terminale read on the 20-point scale, the spécialités you kept for the degree you want, an English test (the bac does not exempt you), and the Personal Profile, which every applicant writes. Here is what UBC publishes for the baccalauréat, what it does not, and where a French applicant usually loses marks.
What UBC looks at from a French applicant
UBC’s entry for France (French Baccalaureate) on its international requirements page says the basis of admission is “completion of the baccalauréat général or the baccalauréat général (option internationale).” The baccalauréat technologique “may be considered for admission on a case-by-case basis,” and the baccalauréat professionnel “does not comprise a basis of admission to UBC.” One line matters for anyone choosing spécialités: “Math Informatique does not satisfy the math requirement” for science-based programs, Sauder or the Vancouver School of Economics. Numérique et sciences informatiques is not a substitute for spécialité mathématiques.
The grades that get offers
UBC does not publish a competitive range for the bac. Its France entry says only that grades “differ by degree, and vary from year to year” and that “in past years, an average of 11 on France’s 20-point grading scale was required.” Read that as a floor, not the level that gets an offer to Science or Engineering. For a sense of what competitive looks like on the same scale, McGill publishes its lowest admitted averages by faculty, and the McGill admission guide for French bac applicants walks through them; a file that clears McGill’s Science line (16.5/20 last cycle) is competitive at UBC too.
What UBC does publish is the spécialité each degree needs. The degree-specific requirements for the French bac, from the same page:
| UBC degree | Spécialités UBC requires (Vancouver) |
|---|---|
| Arts | No specific courses beyond general admission. |
| Science | Spécialité mathématiques in première and terminale, plus spécialité physique-chimie. |
| Applied Science (Engineering) | Spécialité mathématiques in première and terminale, and spécialité physique-chimie in première and terminale. |
| Commerce (Sauder) | Spécialité mathématiques in première and terminale. Sauder adds its own profile questions and a video interview. |
“In première and terminale” is the trap. A student who keeps physique-chimie and SVT into terminale and drops mathématiques to the option maths complémentaires has, in UBC’s terms, no terminale maths and is out of Science, Engineering and Sauder. Decide the drop at the end of première with the UBC table open. Computer Science at UBC is a Science major and follows the Science row.
English: the bac does not exempt you
UBC’s English Language Admission Standard lists the ways to meet it, and the French baccalauréat is not one of them. Neither is the section internationale britannique or américaine nor the BFI, which do not appear on the list (McGill treats them differently; UBC does not). Your Anglais LVA grade, your bac de français and your philosophie mark count for nothing here. Unless you have four consecutive years of English-medium schooling in an English-speaking country, plan a test. The accepted minimums, checked September 2026: IELTS Academic 6.5 with no band below 6.0; TOEFL iBT 90 with reading 22, listening 22, writing 21, speaking 21; Duolingo 125 with reading and listening 115, writing and speaking 120; PTE Academic 65 with 60 in each part; CAEL 70; Cambridge B2 First, C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency at 180. Scores are due by February 15, 2027 for Fall 2027 entry, so book a sitting in autumn of terminale and leave room for a retake.
How and when to apply for Fall 2027 entry
You apply through the UBC application on EducationPlannerBC. UBC’s dates and deadlines page for the 2027 Winter Session lists: the application opens early October 2026; November 15, 2026 is the deadline to apply and submit the award application if you want the International Scholars Program; January 15, 2027 (11:59 p.m. Pacific) is the application deadline for everyone; January 31, 2027 for International Scholars documents; February 15, 2027 for English documents; March 15, 2027 for the required documents of applicants outside Canada. Decisions go out on a continuous basis from November 2026 to June 2027, and the offer acceptance deadline is May 1 or June 1, 2027 depending on your letter. Confirm each date on the page before you plan around it.
Documents: UBC’s submit documents page asks current high-school students for transcripts showing courses in progress by March 15 and final transcripts by June 30. For you that means bulletins de première, the relevé des épreuves anticipées de français, and the terminale bulletins as they arrive; the final bac results come out in early July, after UBC’s June date, so confirm the arrangement with UBC early. Ask the secrétariat for bulletins that print the class average; UBC cannot infer it, and it is how a 14 in physique-chimie reads as strong or ordinary. UBC’s early versus regular admission comparison explains why an early applicant is read on première alone, which for a French student means the year before you dropped a spécialité.
The Personal Profile is your only free variable
Every high-school applicant to UBC’s main degrees, French bac included, completes the Personal Profile. UBC’s Personal Profile page publishes the questions: who you are and how others would describe you; what is important to you and why; up to five activities; one or two in depth; academic history; two referees. Each answer is 500 to 2,100 characters, read for engagement and accomplishment, leadership, substance and voice. Worked answers are in the UBC Personal Profile questions and examples, and the activities list has its own rules in the Personal Profile activities section guide.
Two things trip French applicants specifically. First, the lycée gives you almost nothing to list: no clubs in the North American sense, few titles. Do not invent a leadership role. UBC’s definition is taking responsibility in a way that benefits others, and tutoring a cousin through the brevet or running the MJC’s Saturday atelier counts if you say what you decided and who it affected. Second, answers written in English by someone who thinks in French tend to be grammatically fine and cold: long sentences, abstract nouns, no “I.” UBC names voice as a criterion. Write short. Then paste each answer with its question into AcceptMe’s essay coach; it returns a verdict paragraph and notes pinned to your sentences, tagged works, tighten or fix, and it catches the exact sentences that read like a translated dissertation.
Sauder adds two program-specific questions and a video interview with 30 seconds to think and 90 to answer, in English; the Sauder BCom profile and video interview guide covers the format, and AcceptMe’s interview practice runs the same clock.
Money: tuition, scholarships, proof of funds
UBC charges international tuition per credit. The 2026/27 Academic Calendar fee table lists, for international students starting in 2026: Arts $1,717.68 a credit, Science $1,769.40, Applied Science $1,789.18, Commerce $2,222.61, with increases capped at 3% a year for the following four years. A standard 30-credit year is therefore roughly C$51,500 in Arts, C$53,000 in Science, C$53,700 in Engineering and C$66,700 in Commerce, before student fees, housing and insurance; the 2027/28 table will be a little higher. There is no France-specific rate at UBC, which is the biggest difference from McGill, where the Quebec–France agreement puts French citizens on the Canadian rate.
Scholarships an applicant from France can actually get, from UBC’s international scholarships page: the International Major Entrance Scholarship (C$10,000 to C$25,000 a year for 2026/27) and the Outstanding International Student Award (C$10,000 to C$25,000), both automatic when you apply by the admissions deadline, decided between mid-February and the end of April, and both read the Personal Profile. The need-based International Scholars Program (Karen McKellin International Leader of Tomorrow Award, Donald A. Wehrung International Student Award) needs a nomination from your lycée plus a teacher referee, “all As or equivalent,” and an application by November 15, 2026 with documents by January 31, 2027; ask the proviseur in September. The UBC major entrance scholarships guide explains how the profile feeds the awards.
For the study permit, IRCC’s proof of financial support page requires, for applications from September 1, 2026, C$23,448 a year for living costs outside Quebec, on top of first-year tuition and travel.
The study permit
Canada capped new study permits in 2024 and the cap continues: IRCC’s 2026 allocations notice sets a national target of 408,000 permits, 155,000 of them new arrivals, with British Columbia allotted 32,596 attestation spaces. Under the cap an undergraduate needs a provincial attestation letter (PAL) with the permit application; you do not request it from IRCC, UBC arranges it once you have accepted the offer. Then apply the week you accept: offer letter, PAL, proof of funds, passport, biometrics. The Student Direct Stream, a fast lane that never included France, closed on November 8, 2024, so everyone uses the regular stream. IRCC publishes a processing-time estimate by country; check it in April, and remember it is an estimate, not a promise.
A worked Personal Profile answer
Finishing things is important to me, and I learned it from failing to. In seconde I started a Raspberry Pi weather station for the lycée’s potager and abandoned it in March when the sensor readings made no sense. It sat in a drawer for a year. Last October the SVT teacher asked whether it still existed, because the students running the potager were guessing when to water. I rebuilt it over three weekends, found the bug (I had wired the humidity sensor to the wrong pin, which I should have found in March), and wrote a one-page guide in French so the seconde class could maintain it without me. It has logged every day since November. What matters to me is not the station; it is that eleven people now rely on something I nearly left in a drawer, and that the second attempt only worked because I told the teacher the truth about why the first one stopped.
Around 1,100 characters: a specific failure, a decision, other people affected, a reflection in the last sentence, and no adjectives about herself.
Mistakes French applicants make
- Dropping spécialité mathématiques after première and applying to Science, Engineering or Sauder. Maths complémentaires does not meet the terminale requirement.
- Assuming Anglais counts as English proficiency. It does not at UBC, and neither does a section européenne or internationale. Book IELTS or TOEFL in the autumn.
- Sending bulletins without class averages. A 13.5 in maths spé reads very differently when the class average is 10.8.
- Treating the Personal Profile as a lettre de motivation. UBC is asking who you are and what you did, not why you want to study Science.
- Writing the profile in French and translating it. Draft in English, short sentences, then get it marked up.
- Waiting for the bac results to apply for the permit. The final results are a condition of the offer, not of the permit.
Where to go next
The same bulletins go to two other schools with very different rules: the McGill guide for French bac applicants covers the published /20 cut-offs, the Quebec–France tuition agreement and the CAQ, and the University of Toronto guide for French bac applicants covers how U of T maps your spécialités to its prerequisites and the timed video supplementals that Rotman and Engineering add. If you are weighing Canada against other countries, the by-country guide to Canadian university admissions for international applicants lines up every credential in one table. Before you submit, check the Personal Profile character limits and references guide, because the 2,100-character cut-off is silent. Then put each answer through AcceptMe’s essay coach and fix the sentences it flags before UBC reads them.
Keep reading
- How to Get Into McGill From France: Bac Grades, Tuition, CAQ McGill's /20 cut-offs for the French bac, the BFI English exemption, the Canadian tuition rate for French citizens, the CAQ and the scholarship essay.
- How to Get Into U of T From France: Bac, Anglais, Video How U of T maps French bac spécialités to prerequisites, the Anglais and English-test rules, OUAC 105 dates for Fall 2027, Rotman and Engineering video.
- UBC Personal Profile Questions: How to Answer Each One UBC's Personal Profile questions as published, the four things UBC says it reads for, how to answer within 2,100 characters, and a worked example.