Campus France cover letter, study project and CV: the method and examples

Your motivation goes to the institution, which decides on admission. The reader is the head of the programme: they want to know why their programme serves your path, not why you like France.

Your list holds up to 7 programmes. In Senegal, it is 3 programmes in Licence 1 (first year of the Licence, the French bachelor’s degree), 2 architecture schools, and 7 for a BUT or from Licence 2 to Master’s. In Cameroon, you need at least 2. In Côte d’Ivoire, Campus France asks for "a cover letter of 4 to 5 lines adapted to each programme". The same letter copied for the whole list is spotted immediately.

The platform changed address and version on 1 October 2026 (etudesenfrance.diplomatie.gouv.fr). The character limits going around contradict each other depending on the year and the video: 500, 1,500 or 2,500 characters. The current limit is not published on any official page we have read to be confirmed: look at the field’s counter in your file before you write, and draft a short version of each motivation.

Candidates also report that a title is requested and that the site expects "motivations" rather than a letter with a header: no address, no subject line, no date of birth, all of that is already in your file.

1. Define the job you are aiming for: the position, the sector, the type of company, three or four concrete tasks.
2. List what you are missing to do these tasks: the knowledge and skills your studies have not given you yet.
3. Build the course table of each programme, semester by semester, with for each course a definition in simple words and the task of the job it serves.
4. Write the motivation by naming two or three tasks of the job that match courses of the programme, then show that you can follow these courses thanks to the ones you have already taken. End with what you will do afterwards, and with what draws you to this institution (a lab, an internship, a partnership, an international opening you read about on its website).

This course table serves you twice: it feeds the letter, and it prepares the interview question "which subjects will you study in the first year?".

These examples are fictional. The brackets mark what you must replace with the exact name of a course, an internship or an institution, read on the programme’s website.

Licence 1 (DAP, demande d’admission préalable)

A final-year secondary school student in the science stream, I want to become a civil engineer and work on building structures. The Licence in [exact field] at [university] gives me the foundations I need: [mathematics course] and [mechanics course] from the first semester, which I can follow thanks to my results in mathematics and physics. I plan to continue with [target Master’s or school] after the Licence.

What works: a named job, two courses named, the link with the baccalaureate, the next studies. What many Licence 1 letters lack: the reason for choosing this university rather than another.

Licence 3

Having completed the second year of a Licence in management, I want to become a management controller in an industrial company. The third year of the [field] Licence at [university] offers [management accounting course] and [budget control course], which build on the financial accounting courses I passed with [honours or mark]. The [length] internship in the second semester would let me work on a real budget. I will then continue with a Master’s in management control.

What works: "second year of Licence" rather than a local abbreviation, the course already passed linked to the target course, the internship. Avoid "L2", "S4", "LMD", which the reader may not know.

Master 1

After a Licence in computer science and a one-year web development internship at [company], I want to become a data engineer in the health sector. The [field] Master’s at [university] combines [machine learning course] and [databases course], and its [name] lab works on [topic]. My internship taught me to [real task]; I am missing [skill], which this Master’s teaches in the first semester.

What works: experience linked to what is missing, the lab named. If you already hold a Master’s, explain why this one: going back a level without a reason worries the institution and the consulate.

• Copying your personal details, address, subject line: everything is already in the file.
• Local abbreviations (S1, B1, STMG, L2) instead of "second year of Licence".
• The sentence everyone writes: "at the end of my studies, I want to go home and contribute to the development of my country", without saying in which sector or why that sector lacks skills at home.
• Generic reasons: the reputation of French universities, the quality of teaching, museums.
• Running down your country or your university, talking about money ("earn a lot to help my family").
• A letter written by someone else or at a cybercafé: you will not be able to defend it at the interview.
• A list with no common thread: five different specialities and five different plans.

The CV is required in Senegal (under 500 KB), China (in French or English), Lebanon (PDF), India (with the "statement of purpose") and Vietnam. It is optional in Morocco, but the adviser has it in front of them during the interview and asks questions about it: attach one.

• One page, readable in 10 to 30 seconds, short sentences, the essentials in bold, no mistakes.
• Education first (degrees, years, honours), then experience (dates, company, tasks), languages with your test results, then activities and interests.
• An academic CV, not a job-hunting CV: the reader looks for your path and what prepares you for the target programme.
• Nothing you cannot explain at the interview.

Refused students who reread their file often find the same thing: Études en France motivations, a "statement of purpose", a visa letter and interview answers that do not tell the same story, and a return home that is missing or vague. The refusal reason cited most often, "incomplete or unreliable information", targets exactly this.

Before you submit, reread all your texts one after another and check that they give the same job, the same sequence of studies, the same funding and the same dates.