While nearly 700,000 aspiring college students in South Korea sat for the grueling university-entrance exam in November, Yu Hwa Young spent the day riding roller coasters and snapping pictures at Everland, an amusement park here.
“Everyone was jealous,” said the 19-year-old recent graduate of Posung High School.
Yu skipped the test because he had already been admitted to an international-studies program at Sogang University, based on his grades, a near-perfect score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language, an interview, and extracurricular activities, such as the school newspaper and Model United Nations.
The standardized college-entrance exam—long the key gatekeeper to higher education here in South Korea—is not the only route to college anymore. More than 10 percent of the freshman class that starts in March was selected by newly minted admissions officers, who have undergone training to evaluate hard-to-quantify traits, such as leadership potential and independent thinking. The change in admissions is the centerpiece of a slate of policy reforms aimed at coaxing creativity from students trained to memorize, and at cracking down on the booming private-education sector that is paving an increasingly expensive path to college.
Lee Ju Ho, minister of education, science, and technology, says college admissions has to change before anything else can. “Every parent wants their children to go to the best possible university. That is what is driving our test-driven culture,” he said. “All this energy has been spent on raising test scores, not nurturing creativity or any other aspect of human nature. ... It’s our biggest challenge.”
The ministry invested $31-million, or 35-billion won, in 2010, up from less than $2-million in 2007, to pay for admissions officers’ salaries and training. The system has expanded to more than 100 universities, including some that don’t receive government funds.
Such reforms are happening in test-dominated systems elsewhere, too, as universities emphasize innovation and try to improve their global standing by attracting more foreign students. Top universities Hong Kong and in mainland China are broadening admissions criteria to consider civic engagement and creativity. And the National Association for College Admission Counseling, in the United States, has hosted visitors from Romania and Ukraine, as well as South Korea, who are interested in the more flexible system.
But reversing a centuries-old testing culture could prove to be as difficult here as anywhere. High schools and families need time to catch up in a society where “extracurricular” is often understood to mean extra English or math classes, and where competition is so stiff for entrance to top colleges that extra tutoring is hard to avoid and students don’t have time to do anything except study. Many parents are skeptical that the government-driven reform will survive the next presidential election in 2013.
Still, observers say the nascent change is sparking important conversations in South Korea at a critical time. Middle-school students are starting to think about what they can do beyond academics. And colleges are starting to ask, “What kind of talented young people do we want, and how are we going to find them?” said Chung Kwang Hee, a researcher of admissions policies at the Korean Economic Development Institute.
Roots of Reform
South Korea’s education system is widely admired for rescuing the country from destitution after the Korean War and powering the world’s 13th-largest economy in six short decades. Seventy-eight percent of the population was illiterate in 1948, and a fraction of 1 percent had a postsecondary education. Today, South Korea has one of the lowest illiteracy rates in the world (2 percent) and a high college-completion rate: 58 percent of adults between the ages of 25 and 34 have a two- or four-year degree.
South Koreans celebrate tales of “dragons” who “emerged from a ditch,” or people who achieved greatness from humble beginnings, often with the help of education. Lee Myung Bak was born into a poor family and had to work his way though high school and college, before becoming a chief executive at Hyundai and eventually president.
But the overwhelming demand for college attainment has also spawned intense competition for the best educational opportunities. The culture of striving is fueling a private-education industry that was estimated at $19-billion, or 21.6-trillion won, in 2009. Today, the country’s famed education system is blamed for a plummeting birth rate, record numbers of suicides, and a deepening rift between rich and poor.
Many students who can afford to leave South Korea to pursue higher education do. The number who study abroad increased from 24,000 in 1985 to 218,000 in 2007, government statistics show, with a third of those studying in North America. More and more students are leaving in high school or middle school to learn English and to get in the pipeline for Western universities.
“These days ... if you want to be a dragon, you have to have money,” said Kwon Heok Seung, associate dean for the office of admissions at Seoul National University.
A New Profession
Seoul National, the country’s flagship public university, was among the first to begin adapting its admissions system.
“When we started, we did not have a proper title even. We were called research specialists,” said Lee Seung Yeon, an admissions officer who began working at Seoul National in 2001 out of the corner of an administration office. Over the next decade, with help from consultants from the University of California at Berkeley and Cornell University, the admissions officers pieced together a method for reviewing not just scores or grades but the quality of applicants’ preparation.
Today the university has 24 admissions officers and a stand-alone building. A sketch of a modern future facility hangs in the dean’s office. The office coordinates an evermore complicated system that has three main tracks for selecting about 3,000 students annually.
The largest track lets students play to their strengths, rather than requiring them to score at the top in every subject. Most applicants still take a college-entrance exam, but they are also evaluated on grades, recommendations, essays, and demonstrated talent or interest in their field.
A second track is aimed at regional diversity by considering students with the top grades at each of South Korea’s high schools, though officials say criteria will soon expand. And the third track considers the traditional grade-point average and college-entrance exam. So while some students are angling for more specialized consideration, others are still studying around the clock for the highest possible test score.
Through the expanded process, admissions officers say they have admitted students who never would have made it to the nation’s top university before. Some were students who struggled in early years but became successful later, or who were the first in 30 years to gain entrance from their high school in a rural province, where students have less access to the kind of private tutoring that is prevalent in Seoul.
The university has had to introduce lower-level classes and a tutoring system for some whose skills are lagging. But administrators believe they are admitting more students who are genuinely interested in their fields and not driven exclusively by the most prestigious diploma.
Cultivating intellectual curiosity is also a new priority, as universities hope to attract future leaders.
South Korea struggles with a paradox illustrated on international tests: While students’ skills rank among the highest in the world, corresponding survey results show that their interest or self-confidence in mathematics or science is well below average.
“Twenty or 30 years ago, we needed students who could learn something and just follow what advanced countries are doing. But now Korea is grown up, and we should not simply follow what others do. ... We need new people, new creativity,” said Seon Moon Suk, admissions officer at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, or Kaist, the country’s premiere science and technology research university.
Kaist also broadened its admissions process early. The college-entrance test became optional more than a decade ago, and students have been evaluated on interviews, grades, and recommendations.
Many students come from elite science high schools where they focus on research and can graduate a year early and get accepted to a university without taking the college exam. In 2008, Kaist began to hire admissions officers, who built a model system for applicants from general high schools.
Each college is carrying out the system differently. Some require the national entrance exam or another standardized test, such as the Toefl; others do not.
Most admissions officers say they are looking for students who can think independently and who have not relied heavily on private tutoring. Many believe extensive tutoring perpetuates passive, test-oriented learning.
“We want to send a new message that if you work hard in school and take advantage of opportunities at your school, you can succeed,” said Jung Hee An, an admissions officer at Ewha Womans University, where about a quarter of the entering freshman class was selected by a broader review.
Academics Still Rule
Colleges are asking public high schools to step up and prepare well-rounded, self-reliant students. But it’s a dramatic shift for a system constructed around an all-important exam and an increasingly shared role with the private sector. At many schools in Seoul, athletic fields and classrooms clear out after the last bell, as students head to private tutors or cram schools, where many prepare for the college-entrance exam.
The government is boosting funds to schools to augment after-hours offerings.
But in an effort to compete with cram schools and with each other (schools’ standardized-test scores are published), many public schools are putting extra resources into core subjects such as Korean, English, and math at the expense of the arts and sports.
Yu Hwa Young, who will begin at Sogang University in March, said he took part in the school newspaper at Posung High, but there were few other clubs to join.
He found other activities elsewhere. He also enrolled at a specialized academy designed for students applying to international-studies programs.
During the twice-weekly course, he heard lectures on international affairs and economics and was assigned books by Thomas L. Friedman and Noam Chomsky. The training helped him articulate positions on key issues in international affairs, valuable preparation for his college interviews.
Yu lived abroad during his middle-school years to learn English, and his parents hired a private tutor to help him improve his Toefl score in the months before the test.
“The colleges are saying they don’t want higher scores, but higher is always better,” Yu said.
While public high schools are slow to change, the private sector has quickly adapted to the new “holistic” rhetoric. A range of consulting services and academies offer referrals for volunteer opportunities, preparation for national contests organized to enhance students’ college portfolios, and advice on which combination of grade-point average, test score, and activities will lead to success.
The latest boom in private education is fanning criticism that the admissions-officer approach is causing more inequality, not less, as students with more resources seek out specialized preparation.
Still, Yang Hee Neyong, a top student at a middle-ranked high school in central South Korea, thinks the new system is her best chance to stand out in a sea of ambitious students when she applies to Ewha Womans University next year.
Coming from a middle-class family in an industrial city three hours from the capital, she did not have a chance to study abroad or to attend one of Seoul’s “famous academies,” she said.
Instead, she rose to the top of her English classes by practicing at home, with occasional help from a tutor, and by listening to lessons on tape and recording her voice to practice.
She hopes to impress the admissions officers with her passion for learning English, her dream of becoming an interpreter, and her independence. “I think the fact that I studied for myself can show my potential,” she said.
To prepare for college, she stays at school until 11 p.m. every day. She studies for the college exam but also writes poems and skits in English to enter into competitions. At home she maintains a blog of funny English grammar lessons, and she translates English children’s books into Korean. On the weekends, when many of her friends go to private academies, she volunteers at a nursing home or studies on her own.
Her teacher maintains a portfolio of her multiplying accomplishments and offers advice and encouragement. But avoiding cram schools in a system where class rank matters a lot makes her nervous, “a lot nervous,” she said.
On a November evening, she leafed through an Ewha brochure, studying profiles of students selected by the new admissions officers.
She read aloud descriptions of girls who were president of their class, who traveled the world to volunteer, or who started their own community-service clubs, and who still scored near the top of their class because they got there early and stayed later than everyone else to study. After a few minutes, her cheerful confidence clouded.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “How can I do it?”
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