Conflict over High School Record Rate

The Ministry of Education requested universities to reveal their draft admission procedures that will raise the percentage of high school records reflected to 50 percent by mid July, but the universities are unwilling to do so. It seems the admission procedures for 2008 won’t be confirmed before September.

On June 19, officials of the Ministry of Education said, “It is desirable that universities set up and present a method to calculate a single reflection rate of high school records through negotiations in early July. Extra negotiations won’t be necessary as each university will only have to match the real reflection rate with the pre-announced nominal reflection rate through this calculation method.”

But the view of the universities is that deducing an agreement draft will be difficult because they all have different interests.

The board of the Association of Admission Directors of Universities in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon held a meeting on June 18, but the admission directors of Yonsei University and Korea University were absent. They also disclosed their plan not to attend the regular meeting of the association scheduled in early July.

“The logic of the Ministry of Education telling the association to draw out a calculation method of high school records reflection and to apply it to all universities is like the Federation of Korean Industries sticking its nose into the employment formalities of enterprises,” said an admission director of a private university. “Admission directors are avoiding meeting one another because they have little to gain from such discussion.”

The Ministry of Education proposed to meet with a number of admission directors to discuss the reflection method of high school records, but most of the directors avoided even having meetings.

Confusion on the side of university applicants is likely to be prolonged with the admission directors of major universities showing reactions that the specifics of the admission formalities will only be put down in September or October.

Kim Yeong-su, the admission director of Sogang University, said, “The research groups will come up with three or four drafts in September, and the final announcement can be made by no earlier than October after going through an internal conversation.” Jang Hun, the admission director of Chung Ang University, said, “Since the early admission formality will be confirmed in August and the regular admission formality in October, the reflection rate of high school records will be decided in August at the earliest.”

Cha Gyeong-jun, the admission director of Hanyang University, says, “The conversion equation of high school points will be established in September or October. There is a possibility that a new method will be created using the original points in the school document, the standard deviation, and the average, and be utilized.”

Meanwhile, after Seoul National University confirmed its plan to give full points to students with high school records levels one and two, private universities are hinting their plans to minimize the point gaps in high levels of records.

These universities are considering a scheme to minimize the point gap among the levels from one to four and widening the gap among the lower levels arguing that “the admission procedures won’t mean anything if the real reflection rate of high school grades is raised to 50 percent because that would mean taking only the school records into consideration and neglecting the university entrance exam.”

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