There are some major differences between college entrance processes in the States and in Korea. I have experienced both because I ended up coming to the university in the States after preparing for Korean college entrance exam for almost my entire life.
Korea is a country where going to university is such a crucial aspect. One of the prominent characteristics of Korean college entrance is that it is stressfully competitive. Korean students usually start studying for the college entrance exam since middle school. Before going into deeper stage of studying in high school, they preview the materials they should deal with afterwards. To cover all those materials, they attend private academic institutes to complement their weaknesses. I was also one of those students and once even attended eight different private institutes. This is no different from Korean high school life; I would say it is even more. Especially for my school, foreign language high school, students including me would come to school at 8am and would leave at 10pm. Of course there were always ways to often escape from the school life, but for most of the time I had to stay almost 14 hours a day to study. Except for going to academies after class periods, I lived such sedentary lives in school, feeling as if I am an equal identity with my chair. Even after this long hour of school, it was natural to see students spend their nights to study after going home. Likewise, Korean students study in such competitive atmosphere in order to result successfully in college entrance exam. Students only have a single chance every year to take this exam, which makes students even more desperate and therefore more competitive.
Regarding this competitiveness, I believe there are clearly both benefits and drawbacks. To start off with the benefit, the competitiveness clearly creates somewhat settled studying environment. Since college admission is significant, students indeed feel they ought to study when peers around them are studying twenty-four seven. This betters off the overall productivity of all students. Among Koreans in Emory, I recognize apparent distinctions between those who are used to Korea’s studying atmosphere and those who are not. It is not necessarily about the exam results, but it is rather about their way of studying. Those who have been through show at least one of the tendencies: they stay up late for exams, do not get up frequently once they have taken seat to study(regardless of keep studying or doing some other thing), or study alone rather than in a group.
Concerning the drawbacks, however, students suffer from decent amount of stress and pressure. They feel certain amount of peer pressure and stress from such competitiveness. Compared to other countries, student life in Korea tends to have huge portion of studying and taking exams; therefore students get stressed with frequent exams, comparing their results to others’. Students also feel pressure from their parents who also care a lot for their children’s academic status.
Other than the studying atmosphere, Korean college entrance has another noticeable feature that it mostly focus on academic knowledge than students’ personal characteristics. Though there are some nonscheduled rolling admissions, taking personal essays into consideration, majority of the student admissions are made based on students’ exam scores. For normal admissions, all that colleges would see are students’ scores, almost nothing else. Only the minor non-scheduled rolling admission would take students’ personal essays, GPA, or extracurricular activities into consideration. Therefore, majority of the students focus on studying for the exam, getting good scores on the regular mock tests. Korean students, instructors and even parents tend to assess students with student’s mock test results. This mock test result though, is not necessarily a useful standard to assess students for sure and I would mention this again afterwards.
Let’s go on to college entrance process of colleges in the States. Though I did not have enough time to prepare for college in the States compared to Korean ones, I believe I grasped the overall characteristics of the process. Unlike Korean college entrance exam, I do not think the process in the States require any extensive explanation. It is basically the same with every student, which mainly assesses SAT scores, personal essays, extra-curricular activities, and often interviews. I would say the overall process is very similar to that of Korean nonscheduled rolling admission. It is very individual-based, so I think is better to judge each of the student more specifically. Regarding the SAT exam, I was very fortunate that I did not have to get stress with one of the three parts: Mathematics. It is way simpler than Korean college entrance exam Mathematics part, therefore I did not have to put much effort in it. All I had to do was memorizing whole bunch of new words and getting used to the format of writing part. The distribution of the test seemed to be pretty acceptable, which can assess students' academic abilities quite well. Writing a personal essay was relatively a new experience for me, but I tried to make use of my practice essays that I made for preparing the non-scheduled rolling admission. Overall, it was a much more simple, straightforward process for me to prepare.
Korea is a country where going to university is such a crucial aspect. One of the prominent characteristics of Korean college entrance is that it is stressfully competitive. Korean students usually start studying for the college entrance exam since middle school. Before going into deeper stage of studying in high school, they preview the materials they should deal with afterwards. To cover all those materials, they attend private academic institutes to complement their weaknesses. I was also one of those students and once even attended eight different private institutes. This is no different from Korean high school life; I would say it is even more. Especially for my school, foreign language high school, students including me would come to school at 8am and would leave at 10pm. Of course there were always ways to often escape from the school life, but for most of the time I had to stay almost 14 hours a day to study. Except for going to academies after class periods, I lived such sedentary lives in school, feeling as if I am an equal identity with my chair. Even after this long hour of school, it was natural to see students spend their nights to study after going home. Likewise, Korean students study in such competitive atmosphere in order to result successfully in college entrance exam. Students only have a single chance every year to take this exam, which makes students even more desperate and therefore more competitive.
Regarding this competitiveness, I believe there are clearly both benefits and drawbacks. To start off with the benefit, the competitiveness clearly creates somewhat settled studying environment. Since college admission is significant, students indeed feel they ought to study when peers around them are studying twenty-four seven. This betters off the overall productivity of all students. Among Koreans in Emory, I recognize apparent distinctions between those who are used to Korea’s studying atmosphere and those who are not. It is not necessarily about the exam results, but it is rather about their way of studying. Those who have been through show at least one of the tendencies: they stay up late for exams, do not get up frequently once they have taken seat to study(regardless of keep studying or doing some other thing), or study alone rather than in a group.
Concerning the drawbacks, however, students suffer from decent amount of stress and pressure. They feel certain amount of peer pressure and stress from such competitiveness. Compared to other countries, student life in Korea tends to have huge portion of studying and taking exams; therefore students get stressed with frequent exams, comparing their results to others’. Students also feel pressure from their parents who also care a lot for their children’s academic status.
Other than the studying atmosphere, Korean college entrance has another noticeable feature that it mostly focus on academic knowledge than students’ personal characteristics. Though there are some nonscheduled rolling admissions, taking personal essays into consideration, majority of the student admissions are made based on students’ exam scores. For normal admissions, all that colleges would see are students’ scores, almost nothing else. Only the minor non-scheduled rolling admission would take students’ personal essays, GPA, or extracurricular activities into consideration. Therefore, majority of the students focus on studying for the exam, getting good scores on the regular mock tests. Korean students, instructors and even parents tend to assess students with student’s mock test results. This mock test result though, is not necessarily a useful standard to assess students for sure and I would mention this again afterwards.
Let’s go on to college entrance process of colleges in the States. Though I did not have enough time to prepare for college in the States compared to Korean ones, I believe I grasped the overall characteristics of the process. Unlike Korean college entrance exam, I do not think the process in the States require any extensive explanation. It is basically the same with every student, which mainly assesses SAT scores, personal essays, extra-curricular activities, and often interviews. I would say the overall process is very similar to that of Korean nonscheduled rolling admission. It is very individual-based, so I think is better to judge each of the student more specifically. Regarding the SAT exam, I was very fortunate that I did not have to get stress with one of the three parts: Mathematics. It is way simpler than Korean college entrance exam Mathematics part, therefore I did not have to put much effort in it. All I had to do was memorizing whole bunch of new words and getting used to the format of writing part. The distribution of the test seemed to be pretty acceptable, which can assess students' academic abilities quite well. Writing a personal essay was relatively a new experience for me, but I tried to make use of my practice essays that I made for preparing the non-scheduled rolling admission. Overall, it was a much more simple, straightforward process for me to prepare.