By SAM DILLON

Published: April 27, 2008

Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills

By SAM DILLON

SEOUL, South Korea — It is 10:30 p.m. and students at the elite Daewon prep school here are cramming in a study hall that ends a 15-hour school day. A window is propped open so the evening chill can keep them awake. One teenager studies standing upright at his desk to keep from dozing.

Kim Hyun-kyung, who has accumulated nearly perfect scores on her SATs, is multitasking to prepare for physics, chemistry and history exams.

“I can’t let myself waste even a second,” said Ms. Kim, who dreams of attending Harvard, Yale or another brand-name American college. And she has a good shot. This spring, as in previous years, all but a few of the 133 graduates from Daewon Foreign Language High School who applied to selective American universities won admission.

It is a success rate that American parents may well envy, especially now, as many students are swallowing rejection from favorite universities at the close of an insanely selective college application season.

“Going to U.S. universities has become like a huge fad in Korean society, and the Ivy League names — Harvard, Yale, Princeton — have really struck a nerve,” said Victoria Kim, who attended Daewon and graduated from Harvard last June.

Daewon has one major Korean rival, the Minjok Leadership Academy, three hours’ drive east of Seoul, which also has a spectacular record of admission to Ivy League colleges.

How do they do it? Their formula is relatively simple. They take South Korea’s top-scoring middle school students, put those who aspire to an American university in English-language classes, taught by Korean and highly paid American and other foreign teachers, emphasize composition and other skills crucial to success on the SATs and college admissions essays, and — especially this — urge them on to unceasing study.

Both schools seem to be rethinking their grueling regimen, at least a bit. Minjok, a boarding school, has turned off dormitory surveillance cameras previously used to ensure that students did not doze in late-night study sessions. Daewon is ending its school day earlier for freshmen. Its founder, Lee Won-hee, worried in an interview that while Daewon was turning out high-scoring students, it might be falling short in educating them as responsible citizens.

“American schools may do a better job at that,” Dr. Lee said.

Still, the schools are highly rigorous. Both supplement South Korea’s required, lecture-based national curriculum with Western-style discussion classes. Their academic year is more than a month longer than at American high schools. Daewon, which costs about $5,000 per year to attend, requires two foreign languages besides English. Minjok, where tuition, board and other expenses top $15,000, offers Advanced Placement courses and research projects.

And, oh yes. Both schools suppress teenage romance as a waste of time.

“What are you doing holding hands?” a Daewon administrator scolded an adolescent couple recently, according to his aides. “You should be studying!”

Students do not seem to complain. Park Yeshong, one of Kim Hyun-kyung’s classmates, said attractions tended to fade during hundreds of hours of close-quarters study. “We know each other too well to fall in love,” she said. Many American educators would kill to have such disciplined pupils.

Both schools reserve admission for highly motivated students; the application process resembles that at many American colleges, where students are judged on their grade-point averages, as well as their performance on special tests and in interviews.

“Even my worst students are great,” said Joseph Foster, a Williams College graduate who teaches writing at Daewon. “They’re professionals; if I teach them, they’ll learn it. I get e-mails at 2 a.m. I’ll respond and go to bed. When I get up, I’ll find a follow-up question mailed at 5 a.m.”

South Korea is not the only country sending more students to the United States, but it seems to be a special case. Some 103,000 Korean students study at American schools of all levels, more than from any other country, according to American government statistics. In higher education, only India and China, with populations more than 20 times that of South Korea’s, send more students.

“Preparing to get to the best American universities has become something of a national obsession in Korea,” said Alexander Vershbow, the American ambassador to South Korea.

Korean applications to Harvard alone have tripled, to 213 this spring, up from 66 in 2003, said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions. Harvard has 37 Korean undergraduates, more than from any foreign country except Canada and Britain. Harvard, Yale and Princeton have a total of 103 Korean undergraduates; 34 graduated from Daewon or Minjok.

This year, Daewon and Minjok graduates are heading to universities like Stanford, Chicago, Duke and seven of the eight Ivy League universities — but not to Harvard. Instead, Harvard accepted four Korean students from three other prep schools.

“That was certainly not any statement” about the Daewon and Minjok schools, Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “We’re alert to getting kids from schools where we haven’t had them before, but we’d never reject an applicant simply because he or she came from a school with a history of sending students to Harvard.”

South Korea’s academic year starts in March, so the 2008 class of Daewon’s Global Leadership Program, which prepares students for study at foreign universities, graduated in February.

One graduate was Kim Soo-yeon, 19, who was accepted by Princeton this month. Daewon parents tend to be wealthy doctors, lawyers or university professors. Ms. Kim’s father is a top official in the Korean Olympic Committee.

Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.

“Most Korean mothers want their children to get 100 on all the tests in all the subjects,” Ms. Kim’s mother said.

Ms. Kim’s highest aspiration was to attend a top Korean university, until she read a book by a Korean student at Harvard about American universities. Immediately she put up a sign in her bedroom: “I’m going to an Ivy League!”

Even while at Daewon, Ms. Kim, like thousands of Korean students, took weekend classes in English, physics and other subjects at private academies, raising her SAT scores by hundreds of points. “I just love to do well on the tests,” she said.

As bright as she is, she was just one great student among many, said Eric Cho, Daewon’s college counselor. Sitting at his computer terminal at the school, perched on a craggy eastern hilltop overlooking the Seoul skyline, Mr. Cho scrolled through the class of 2008’s academic records.

Their average combined SAT score was 2203 out of 2400. By comparison, the average combined score at Phillips Exeter, the New Hampshire boarding school, is 2085. Sixty-seven Daewon graduates had perfect 800 math scores.

Kim Hyun-kyung, 17, scored perfect 800s on the SAT verbal and math tests, and 790 in writing. She is scheduled to take nine Advanced Placement tests next month, in calculus, physics, chemistry, European history and five other subjects. One challenge: she has taken none of these courses. Instead, she is teaching herself in between classes at Daewon, buying and devouring textbooks.

So she is busy. She rises at 6 a.m. and heads for her school bus at 6:50. Arriving at Daewon, she grabs a broom to help classmates clean her classroom. Between 8 and noon, she hears Korean instructors teach supply and demand in economics, Korean soils in geography and classical poets in Korean literature.

At lunch she joins other raucous students, all, like her, wearing blue blazers, in a chow line serving beans and rice, fried dumpling and pickled turnip, which she eats with girlfriends. Boys, who sit elsewhere, wolf their food and race to a dirt lot for a 10-minute pickup soccer game before afternoon classes.

Kim Hyun-kyung joins other girls at a hallway sink to brush her teeth before reporting to French literature, French culture and English grammar classes, taught by Korean instructors. At 3:20, her English language classes begin. This day, they include English literature, taught by Mani Tadayon, a polyglot graduate of the University of California at Berkeley who was born in Iran, and government and politics, taught by Hugh Quigley, a former Wall Street lawyer.

Evening study hall begins at 7:45. She piles up textbooks on an adjoining desk, where they glare at her like a to-do list. Classmates sling backpacks over seats, prop a window open and start cramming. Three hours later, the floor is littered with empty juice cartons and water bottles. One girl has nodded out, head on desk. At 10:50 a tone sounds, and Ms. Kim heads for a bus that will wend its way through Seoul’s towering high-rise canyons to her home, south of the Han River.

“I feel proud that I’ve endured another day,” she said.

The schedule at the Minjok academy, on a rural campus of tile-roofed buildings in forested hills, appears even more daunting. Students rise at 6 for martial arts, and thereafter, wearing full-sleeved, gray-and-black robes, plunge into a day of relentless study that ends just before midnight, when they may sleep.

But most keep cramming until 2 a.m., when dorm lights are switched off, said Gang Min-ho, a senior. Even then some students turn on lanterns and keep going, Mr. Gang said. “Basically we lead very tired lives,” he said.

Students sometimes report for classes so exhausted that Alexander Ganse, a German who teaches European history, said he asked, “Did you go to bed at all last night?”

“But we’re not only nerds!” interrupted Choi Jung-yun, who grew up in San Diego. Minjok students play sports, take part in many clubs and even have a rock band, she said. Ambassador Vershbow, who plays the drums, confirmed that with photographs that showed him jamming with Minjok’s rockers during a visit to the school last year.

There are other hints of slackening. A banner once hung on a Minjok building. “This school is a paradise for those who want to study and a hell for those who do not,” it read. But it was taken down after faculty members deemed it too harsh, said Son Eun-ju, director of counseling.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=804941&forum_id=1#9689649)

geez just do it yourself kids

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=804941&forum_id=1#9689680)

May 2, 2008

By Gerald Bradshaw

While American high school officials busy themselves debating the wisdom of class rank, the opposite approach is taking place in Korea, where students spend up to 15 hours a day studying in hopes of graduating number one in their class.

The leading front page story of last Sunday's New York Times reported that Korean high school student Kim Hyun-kyung was lamenting, "I can't let myself waste even a second."

She has hopes of attending Harvard, Yale or another brand-name American college. And judging by Korea's outstanding record in getting students admitted to America's top schools, she has a good chance of getting in.

Korean students' average combined SAT score was 2203 out of 2400. By comparison, the average combined score at Phillips Exeter, the New Hampshire boarding school, is 2085. Sixty-seven of her classmates had perfect 800 math scores.

American parents are envious, especially now that rejection letters have arrived in the mail in record numbers.

How do Koreans do it? They test their students relentlessly. When students reach middle school, only the top-scoring ones are accepted. They are then placed in English-speaking language classes taught by highly paid teachers who emphasize composition, the admissions essay, math and how to score high on the SAT. Then students are placed on relentless study regimes that would have most American parents pounding down the doors of the school board.

On the other hand, one school official admitted that the curriculum of Korean schools might come up short in building model citizens.

"American schools may do a better job at that," he said. But students rarely complain. Their focus is on grade-point averages, scoring high on tests and class rank.

"Even my worst students are great," said a Williams College graduate who teaches writing. "I get e-mails at 2 a.m. I'll respond and go to bed. When I get up, I'll find a follow-up question mailed at 5 a.m."

The payoff? Over 100,000 Koreans study at American colleges and universities, more than from nearly any other country. Only India and China, with 20 times the population, send more students. The numbers speak for themselves. Harvard has 37 Korean undergraduates, more than from any foreign country except Canada and Britain. Add Yale and Princeton to the total, and you have 103 undergraduates from Korea.

It is a little unsettling when American high school officials see things differently from our Korean competitors, making it easier to take classes to avoid the pressures of competing for top ranking, which flies in the face of admissions standards.

While some university officials may downplay the importance of class rank, parents and students must ask themselves a simple question: Why is the question on the application?

Making life easier for students isn't the goal of high schools we must compete with in a global economy. Not everyone can get an "A." Not everyone can be a winner. Not everyone can be No. 1 in his class.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=804941&forum_id=1#9721388)

That being said, the education system in Korea is very front loaded: students tend to study their asses off to get into a good college and then basically relax and socialize for several years. IMHO, this really isn't the best way to structure an education system, but hey, whatever floats their boat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=804941&forum_id=1#9731682)

Friday, May. 2nd 2008 5:42

The New York Times has an article on the seemingly latest fad in Korean academia: to win admissions to the most prestigious universities in the United States. One of the students at the prestigious Daweon Foreign Language High School, who graduated from Harvard, puts it this way: “Going to U.S. universities has become like a huge fad in Korean society, and the Ivy League names — Harvard, Yale, Princeton — have really struck a nerve.” An American Ambassador says, “Preparing to get to the best American universities has become something of a national obsession in Korea.”

The goals of the high school are some that may need to be emulated by those magnet programs in the USA: an extremely strong focus on studying hard.

Though the grueling study is a bit extreme — previously, one of these preparatory schools installed cameras in the dormitories so that students would not fall asleep during late-night study sessions. After all, while academics is one major goal for the students, another goal is to become a responsible citizen.

Beyond the hardcore studying comes the need to learn a third language (in addition to Korean and English) plus taking Advanced Placement courses. The school also runs for 10 months a year instead of the standard American 9.

Romance, too, is scolded upon. It’s perceived as wasting time. In the lunchroom, girls and boys sit separately.

What does that translate to in US colleges? Harvard has seen 213 new applications for its 2009 freshman class (up from 66 in ‘03). The Daewon school (and its closest competitor) have 34 graduates in Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. There were 133 graduates in total in this year’s class.

The culture in South Korea is a bit different. While our academic year in the US starts in August or September, South Korea’s starts in March. Graduation is held in February. (You can imagine the stress of college applications during such an odd schedule, but they work it out.)

A Princeton student from the Korean culture shares her story about the emphasis on top grades: “Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.”

The hard work doesn’t stop on weekends either. Classes in English and meet on weekends with the aim to raise SAT scores for Ivy League consideration. One student is taking 9 Advanced Placement exams next month in all different areas of study.

The test score averages are also high. The article says: “[The school’s] average combined SAT score was 2203 out of 2400. By comparison, the average combined score at Phillips Exeter, the New Hampshire boarding school, is 2085. Sixty-seven Daewon graduates had perfect 800 math scores.”

And so continues the life of a South Korean student:

“She rises at 6 a.m. and heads for her school bus at 6:50. Arriving at Daewon, she grabs a broom to help classmates clean her classroom. Between 8 and noon, she hears Korean instructors teach supply and demand in economics, Korean soils in geography and classical poets in Korean literature.

At lunch she joins other raucous students, all, like her, wearing blue blazers, in a chow line serving beans and rice, fried dumpling and pickled turnip, which she eats with girlfriends. Boys, who sit elsewhere, wolf their food and race to a dirt lot for a 10-minute pickup soccer game before afternoon classes.

Kim Hyun-kyung joins other girls at a hallway sink to brush her teeth before reporting to French literature, French culture and English grammar classes, taught by Korean instructors. At 3:20, her English language classes begin. This day, they include English literature, taught by Mani Tadayon, a polyglot graduate of the University of California at Berkeley who was born in Iran, and government and politics, taught by Hugh Quigley, a former Wall Street lawyer.

Evening study hall begins at 7:45. She piles up textbooks on an adjoining desk, where they glare at her like a to-do list. Classmates sling backpacks over seats, prop a window open and start cramming. Three hours later, the floor is littered with empty juice cartons and water bottles. One girl has nodded out, head on desk. At 10:50 a tone sounds, and Ms. Kim heads for a bus that will wend its way through Seoul’s towering high-rise canyons to her home, south of the Han River.

“I feel proud that I’ve endured another day,” she said.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=804941&forum_id=1#9725193)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=804941&forum_id=1#9733832)