The school is very small in student numbers. Its core of students, who are called" normaliens", are selected via a competitive exam called a "concours" (baccalaureate + 2 years) after a preparatory class. Two hundred "normaliens" are thus recruited every year, half of them in the sciences and the same number in the humanities, and receive a monthly salary (around €1,350/month in 2018), and in exchange they sign a ten-year contract to work for the state. Although it is seldom applied in practice, this exclusivity clause is redeemable (often by the hiring firm).