At emlyon business school, eligibility for the AST2 track hinges on an application file weighted 6 out of 10 and a TAGE MAGE or GMAT score weighted 4 out of 10. But the oral stage decides almost everything else: out of the 11 coefficient points assigned to admission, the individual personality interview alone accounts for 9, against just 2 for the English oral. Writing a strong emlyon AST cover letter and methodically preparing the emlyon motivation interview are therefore the two steps that really determine whether you land one of the roughly 365 spots available each year. Here is how to structure your letter and approach the emlyon parallel admission oral without improvising.
What the EM Lyon jury expects
emlyon's parallel admission process runs in two distinct phases. Eligibility rests on review of the application file (academic background, experience, coherence of your path), weighted 6 out of 10, combined with your TAGE MAGE or GMAT score, weighted 4 out of 10. Candidates declared eligible then sit two oral exams: the emlyon motivation interview and an English oral. According to emlyon's official guide to parallel admission 🔗, the AST2 track is open to holders of a bac+3/4/5 diploma recognized by the French State or classified level II on the RNCP register, granting direct entry into the second year of the Master in Management.
The individual personality interview carries most of the weight in the final grade: it counts for a coefficient of 9, against only 2 for the English oral. It runs about twenty-five minutes and follows a format specific to emlyon: candidates draw four thematic cards - Experience, Personality, Creativity, and Project - and get two minutes to prepare their first answer before choosing which card to start with. The jury is made up of two people, typically a faculty member and a working professional, one leading the interview while the other observes.
This format isn't an academic quiz. According to business-cool.com 🔗, the jury is mainly assessing the coherence between the candidate's background, their professional project, and the Master in Management, along with genuine knowledge of the school beyond its ranking. Motivation for emlyon business school isn't a matter of admiring the brand from a distance: the jury wants to understand why this specific candidate, with this specific background, has built a project that genuinely fits this specific school.
Standard structure for the cover letter
An emlyon AST cover letter runs one page and follows a four-part structure designed to be read in about three minutes.
The hook. Skip generic openers ("Passionate about finance for as long as I can remember..."). Open with a precise fact: an internship that revealed an entrepreneurial streak, a notable student project, a concrete realization about the limits of your current training. The jury should recognize a real person from the first lines, not a template application.
The background. This section shouldn't summarize the resume already attached to your file - it should explain the logic connecting your choices. Why this bachelor's degree, this technical degree, or this preparatory track? What did that path teach you that the traditional route wouldn't have? emlyon particularly values candidates who own an atypical background rather than presenting it as a fallback.
The project, tuned to emlyon's entrepreneurial identity. This is often the weakest section in the letters the school receives. "Working in finance" isn't a specific enough project. emlyon claims a strong entrepreneurial identity: a credible project benefits from resting on some personal initiative, however modest - a startup project, an association role with a managed budget, a work experience where you drove something concrete. Name a sector, possibly a final-year specialization, and justify the choice with something you actually lived through rather than an abstract aspiration.
The close. Brief, it restates your motivation for emlyon business school by citing something specific to the program - a specialization track, a dual degree, the Lyon entrepreneurial ecosystem - rather than a list of superlatives about the school's reputation.
💡 To go further: the resume is also part of the eligibility file - see our guide to the emlyon business school parallel admission resume for how to structure the other key piece of your application.
Common interview questions
Drawing the four cards structures the interview, but certain questions come up almost systematically regardless of the order.
"Introduce yourself and walk me through your background." An almost certain opening question, tied to the Experience card. Don't recite your resume line by line: pick a through-line that explains the coherence of your choices leading up to this AST2 application.
"Why emlyon rather than another school?" The central question of the emlyon parallel admission oral. A credible answer names a genuinely differentiating element - the learning-by-doing pedagogy, the Lyon entrepreneurial ecosystem, a final-year specialization - and avoids generic flattery lifted from the institutional website.
"Tell me about a project or initiative you're proud of." The heart of the Creativity card. Structure it: the context, your exact role, a difficulty you ran into, how you solved it, the outcome or lesson learned.
"How would you describe your personality, and how would people close to you describe you?" A typical Personality-card question. The jury is looking for coherence between the image you present and concrete supporting examples, not a list of flattering adjectives.
"What is your professional project, and how does this school contribute to it?" A near-systematic Project-card question. A vague project ("working in finance") immediately weakens the answer; a project that names a sector, an intended role, and a triggering event is far more convincing.
"How will you fit in when you haven't followed the same track as your future classmates?" A destabilizing but frequent question for AST profiles. The right answer acknowledges the gap without denying it, cites what you've already done to close it, and recalls what your background brings back to the group.
A worked example of a structured answer
Compare two possible answers to "Tell me about a project you're proud of," for the same candidate coming from a two-year international business degree who ran a student association project.
Vague version:
"I was treasurer of a student association for two years, it was a very rewarding experience that taught me teamwork."
Structured version:
"In my second year, I took over the treasury of a student association that was 1,200 euros in deficit. I renegotiated two partnerships with local businesses, set up a monthly budget tracker shared with the board, and organized an event that brought in 3,000 euros in revenue. The association ended the year with an 800-euro surplus. What struck me most was realizing that a poorly tracked budget can sink a project even when the activity itself is working well - that's what pushed me toward corporate finance rather than pure commerce."
The second version does four things in a few sentences: it sets a precise context, describes a concrete action with verifiable numbers, presents a measurable result, and ties the experience back to the professional project mentioned elsewhere in the letter. That's exactly what the jury is trying to draw out on each of the four cards - an answer that could almost fit on a memo card, while still inviting a follow-up question.
Mistakes that cost candidates points
- A letter recycled from another school, recognizable by a poorly swapped name or references too generic to be specific to emlyon - a jury spots this kind of letter within seconds.
- A missing or overly vague professional project, which suggests the application rests purely on the school's reputation rather than a considered choice.
- Reciting the institutional website during the oral. Repeating the brochure word for word shows a lack of personal research and adds nothing distinctive to the emlyon parallel admission oral.
- Undermining your own background. Presenting your technical degree, university degree, or preparatory track as a fallback plan contaminates the whole interview - the jury is looking for candidates who own their trajectory.
- Ignoring the Creativity or Personality cards in favor of the Project card alone. Many candidates only prepare their pitch on the professional project and improvise on the other three themes, even though all four carry equal weight in the interview.
- Not preparing a question for the jury. Skipping a closing question, even on a minor point about the program, signals a lack of interest that hurts the final impression you leave.
Building a convincing emlyon AST cover letter and preparing a structured interview takes time - the last place you should lose any of it is formatting your resume and letter. FinanceCV handles layout and typography automatically, in a clean format compatible with applicant tracking systems (ATS), so you can spend your energy on substance rather than aligning margins.
Ready to structure your application? Generate your cover letter for free and focus on preparing for the oral.