Sociological works on school elites use analogies to conceptualize and account for how reaching a prestigious and selective educational institution impact the selection of students, their training and, ultimately, the production/reproduction of social inequalities. In particular, in works about the French case, we often find two types of metaphor: an "industrial" metaphor (the "production" or the "making" of elites) and a more biological metaphor (the "reproduction" of elites). These two analogies are useful to highlight salient points of the French elite selection/training system, namely its capacity to standardize the practices and representations of future elites as well as to participate in the inertia of the unequal distribution of certain preeminent positions (and of the material and symbolic resources associated with them). In this article, we will present these two analogies, their relevance and their main limitation: that of focusing almost exclusively on the conditions of access to elitist educational paths. We will also present the potential of one other geographically inspired analogy ("the highway to success") to deepening the understanding of the the life courses sequences of grandes écoles graduates after successful completion of the entrance exam, during the years of study and – above all – during the insertion, stabilization and progression in the professional spaces served by these selective courses.