For prestigious university admission, S. Korean students and parents in a war for information

Posted on : 2016-03-21 17:31 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
With complex admission procedure, opportunities can be determined by access to info and money
The logos of
The logos of

“It was in the process of trying to build my extracurriculars and make a stronger application that I really sensed how much of a ‘dirt spooner’ I was.”

“Yu Si-yeol,” 19, used a popular coinage used in South Korea lately to describe people from underprivileged backgrounds. This year, he started at a private university in Seoul after graduating from a general high school in nearby Gyeonggi Province. He’s also from a single-parent household where finances are tight. He had hoped to go to a science high school, but didn’t get in. In his university entrance exams this year, he applied for rolling admission to top-ranked Seoul National University (SNU), but failed to pass the first stage of document evaluation.

In his third year of middle school - the equivalent of ninth grade in the US - Yu met a number of friends at a university-affiliated institute for talented young people. Many of them ended up going to what are known as “special purpose high schools”: science high schools, foreign language high schools, and international high schools. Most also came from wealthy backgrounds.

“I would often go to them basically begging for information about competitions and activities,” he recalled. “My friends from international high schools would go to universities in the US to research topics. I also saw some cases in my third year where they ended up spending thousands of dollars on ‘packages’ to prepare documents like self-introductions and records for their student record screening.”

Yu said the experience “really brought home that all the talk about ‘equality of opportunity’ in South Korea is just empty sloganeering.”

One day, he found himself venting his frustrations with a friend. “My friend just asked me, ‘What’s so strange about spending money to go to university in a capitalist society?‘”

Support from schools was also different.

“I would have to submit documents through my science teacher whenever I went to a science competition sponsored by the provincial office of education,” he explained. “My teacher was a bit put out when I submitted documents a bit late, and showed me a list of his duties, explaining, ’These are all the things I have to do in addition to what you‘re doing.’”

“At general high schools, they don‘t put as much value on things like going to competitions. I understood then that it wasn’t an issue with my teacher - it was a systemic problem.”

Yu ended up making his own science research club benchmarking the science high schools - where students conduct experiments and write research papers - but had to draft his own proposal and apply for money from a corporate social contribution program when the school couldn‘t afford it.

Comprehensive student record screening is fast becoming the norm for entrance at most major universities, with extracurricular activities like clubs, volunteering, career building, and outside reading counted as major factors. It was introduced with the aim of reflecting individual students’ “dreams and talents.” Instead, socioeconomic backgrounds and alma maters have become the major variables for extracurriculars. It’s also proven fertile ground for new private education businesses.

 from left to right
from left to right

 

Information is vital: Parents struggle behind the scenes

A parent surnamed Kim lives in Daechi, a neighborhood in Seoul’s Gangnam district known for its high concentration of private after school academies. Kim’s daughter graduated from a foreign language high school this year and was accepted to one of the city’s top universities. While the daughter was still in high school, Kim formed a team with other parents to draft a “curriculum” of private after-school academies - known locally as “hagwons” - for their children to attend. The team was headed by an older parent whose child had been accepted by SNU; she screened information on private information for academic and extracurricular areas before passing it on to the others.

“It was like North Korea, where Kim Jong-un issues orders and everyone has to follow them,” Kim recalled. “We just did whatever that mother told us to.”

With comprehensive student record screening creating a more complex university admission system, parents’ ability to find the necessary information has turned into a key variable in success or failure in university admission. In some cases, it has escalated into information warfare among parents.

“My nephew goes to a special purpose high school,” said a parent in Daechi surnamed Noh. “The mothers have created a team and take turns doing lessons, and I heard about one mother who was shut out after sharing a telephone number with another parent.”

A third Daechi parent, surnamed Doh, explained, “It’s not like mothers are busy with anything else during the day.”

“Once they hear that so-and-so got into a prestigious university, they call up and get information. That‘s the most direct and accurate way - not to get information from the hagwons, but to go and ask some mother who’s actually succeed in enrollment,” Doh added.

“It doesn’t really matter when the parents are empty nesters who’ve sent all their kids off to university. But if they’ve still got a child left to go, they don’t share the important information,” Doh continued.

 

Private education for extracurriculars?

A parent surnamed Lee has a daughter in her second year at a Seoul foreign language high school. This year, Lee plans to get a private tutor for any intramural competitions the daughter wants to participate in. It costs an average of two million won (US$1,720) a month to prepare for midterms and finals - and additional expenses tend to arise.

“Children aren‘t going to win prizes preparing on their own,” Lee said. “So if it’s a philosophy competition, you get a private philosophy tutor to prepare.”

“The schools also instruct students to write student records. So they tend to go to private education academies for consulting before turning it in,” Lee added. “Then it goes up [on the Ministry of Education‘s National Education Information System network] to make sure there isn’t a comma out of place.”

“All those resume details are bought and paid for - the universities seem to have no idea what it‘s like at these high schools,” Lee said.

“When you spend that much to get your child in a good school, does that show your child’s ability or yours?”

Kim recalled a campus activity in which her daughter joined two other students to create a vocabulary dictionary.

“The hagwon helped out for about 1.5 million won (US$1,290),” Kim said, adding, “Extracurriculars cost more than academic areas.”

A hagwon in Daechi that specializes in strategies for university admission- identified by its initial “D” - offers a “student record program” for first and second year high school students and a “consulting program” for third year students. Student record program coaching comes in three areas: extracurriculars, reading, and study skills. For extracurricular coaching, 200,000 won (US$170) pays for a 120-minute session on “areas to watch for when outlining and writing a student record, assessment factors and standards for written entries, practice with organizing and entering career-suited club activities, studies on intramural competitions by school, and supplementary textbook materials for your desired college or school.”

“The situation in the hagwon business these days is one where the English schools are all going under [after the introduction of absolute evaluation of English skills] and all the academies teach math or do consulting for comprehensive student record screening,” said the director of one English hagwon that has operated in Daechi for over nine years.

“The consulting services include everything from drafting student records to preparing for intramural competitions and writing short research papers,” the director added. “I’ve heard of it costing eight million won (US$6,860) apiece to instruct a student on writing one research paper.”

 

Programs only the ‘gold spoon’ schools can afford

Schools also vary widely in the quantity and quality of programs they can offer students. Special purpose high schools, autonomous private high schools, and general high schools in the wealthy three Gangnam neighborhoods offer programs that high schools in other areas are hard pressed to imitate.

One general high school in Gangnam offers a Research and Education (R&E) program as an “on-campus extracurricular activity.” In it, students work with experts to do research and write papers. It isn’t tough to find experts to serve as advisers; the schools can simply contact the parents or colleagues of current students. Early in the semester, the high school sends out a family newsletter recruiting “parents with professional skills who work at universities, government agencies, or corporations.” Last year, seventeen professionals served as advisers, helping students research topics like “past examples of Big Data analysis” and “predicting metabolic syndrome in chest CTs for lung cancer diagnosis.” Because they were considered campus activities, students could use include them as academic credentials in the “detailed abilities and special skills” section of their applications. Project research like this is one of the “advanced skills” that students believe will earn them a positive assessment in the comprehensive screening for admission to a top university.

Most general high schools don’t have the wherewithal to arrange supervising professors for their students. Typically, one or two successful competitors there may advance to a competition run by the state or provincial office of education, where they can then go on to do project research activities. Even that is regarded as “extracurricular,” which means they can only record their participation without listing any prizes won in their student history.

“Before, I went to a middle school in Dongdaemun [a district in Seoul], but my parents moved to Daechi for my education,” said Cho Hyeon-jae, a 19-year-old graduate of the aforementioned general high school who was accepted to SNU in this year’s rolling admission.

“More than anything else like hagwons, it was the fact that I was able to take part in programs like project research that really helped me,” Cho said.

By Jin Myeong-seon, staff reporter

 

Names of sources in this article have been changed to protect their privacy

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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