Excelia Business School left the Passerelle exam in 2025 to run its own direct-entry admission process, with a fully remote interview procedure. This recent change shifts the preparation you need: the cover letter and video interview now carry more weight in selection than they used to.
What the Excelia jury expects
For the direct-entry admission (AST) intake, Excelia offers around 400 places split between AST1 (two years of higher education) and AST2 (three to four years), with an application window that typically closes in early May. No specific field of study is required, but the jury values a foundation in management or economics, and above all a clear consistency between your academic path and your career project. The interview takes place over video call, in a tighter format where each answer carries more weight than in a longer in-person oral.
The jury is mainly checking that the application isn't a fallback choice: a school that recruits its own candidates outside a shared common exam pays particular attention to genuine motivation for Excelia specifically, and for its La Rochelle base.
Building your letter step by step
An effective AST cover letter follows a four-part structure. First, an opening that explains in one sentence why direct-entry admission rather than a traditional path. Then a paragraph on your current background, framed as proof of transferable skills rather than a plain chronological recap. Next, a paragraph dedicated specifically to Excelia: mention a concrete element of the program (specialization, work-study track, international campus) rather than a generic phrase that could apply to any school. Finally, a closing that projects your professional goal after graduation.
🎯 Starting point: before writing your letter, first build a solid resume for direct-entry admission to Excelia La Rochelle: both documents need to tell the same story consistently.
Mistake to avoid: recycling a generic "direct-entry admission" letter without adapting the paragraph dedicated to the school. AST juries compare hundreds of applications and immediately spot a non-personalized letter.
Frequent interview questions
Excelia's remote interview format generally asks questions in these categories: your background and academic results (why these grades, this reorientation), your knowledge of the target program, a question on current economic or management news, and a short scenario to assess your responsiveness. Unlike a traditional in-person Passerelle oral with several examiners, the tighter remote format leaves less room for extended improvisation: every answer needs to be structured and get to the point.
Example of a structured answer
To the question "Why direct-entry admission, and why Excelia?", an effective answer follows the situation-motivation-project structure:
"After a two-year International Business degree completed with a work-study experience in export, I identified a need to strengthen my skills in finance and strategy to move toward international development roles. Excelia's program, with its strong international dimension and its proximity to La Rochelle's economic fabric, matches this goal. I'm ultimately aiming for an international business development role at an exporting SME."
This structure avoids the classic pitfall of an answer too focused on the past and not enough on the future project, which is precisely what a direct-entry admission jury is trying to assess.
Mistakes that penalize the candidate
⚠️ Watch out: these mistakes come up often among AST candidates and can be costly in a tight interview where every minute counts.
- Motivation centered solely on the school's ranking, with no mention of the academic content or the professional project.
- Not knowing about Excelia's exam change: mistakenly referring to a Passerelle test when the school now runs its own process reveals a lack of preparation.
- Speaking too fast or hesitantly on video call, where the lack of direct eye contact amplifies delivery flaws more than in an in-person interview.
- Not asking the jury any questions at the end of the interview, often read as a lack of genuine interest in the program.
To follow updates on the exam and feedback from candidates of previous sessions, Objectif AST 🔗 publishes regular coverage specifically dedicated to Excelia, useful for refreshing your preparation year over year.
Once your letter is written and your interview talking points are ready, all that's left is presenting a resume that matches that level of preparation. FinanceCV automatically formats your application into a professional, ATS-compatible layout that some schools now use to sort files ahead of the interview, so your background gets read under the best conditions.
Ready to write your cover letter? Use our free cover letter generator.