Government and Colleges at Odds over New College Admission Scheme

Adding to the national debate about which method should be authorized for selecting new students for colleges, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development said it would continuously ban written tests from the college entrance process to stave off moves by colleges and universities across the nation to enforce interviews and essay writing by taking advantage of new government plans to change the college application process starting in 2008.

“Using the insufficient ability of the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT) and transcripts as academic credential distinguisher as a pretext, colleges and universities could introduce additional written tests,” said the ministry on August 27. “We will seek cooperation from colleges, which will conduct on-site essay writing and interviews for this year’s regular admission period. Their non-compliance will result in administrative or financial disciplines.”

The ministry plans to meet college admission administrators to seek cooperation against undermining efforts to “normalize” high school education by not introducing such written tests as additional scholastic aptitude tests, in-depth interviews, personality, and academic credential tests.

“Written tests centering on Korean, English, Math, high school rankings, and contribution-based admissions won’t be allowed,” the ministry said. “The intelligence claiming that some colleges use high school academics rankings in evaluating the personal essays and academic plans of applicants has come to our attention.”

However, colleges countered that while under the new government plans, the CSAT has little meaning and transcripts lack objectivity so it is contradictory to keep old methods to select students unchanged.

While they refrain themselves from openly defying the government, they said they would have to take measures on their own if the ministry loosens its regulatory yoke.

“It does not make any sense to treat equally transcripts from a high school which has been sending tens of students to top colleges and transcripts from a high school which hasn’t been,” said an admission administrator. “It is the reality that colleges rank high schools on their own.”

A survey of CSAT scores from 1,847 high schools nationwide in 2001 by Korea University found that there were three high schools of which all students ranked in the top 30 percentile, while at 823 schools, or 45 percent, none of the students were in the 10 percentile.

“Time is ripe for colleges to be authorized to select their students. To stop them from doing so is like buying things with eyes shut,” said another administrator. “One way or another, colleges will attempt to downplay transcripts and introduce their own tests in evaluating applicants’ credentials.”

Colleges have clandestinely ranked high school based on each school’s test results history in selecting new students in the regular admission process.

“Although the education ministry bans high school ranking, under the new scheme, more and more colleges will rank high schools,” said Lee Young-koo, admission administrator at Chung-Ang University.

In-Chul Lee inchul@donga.com