"Let Schools Decide GPA Share"

College admission officials nationwide met on July 2 to discuss government-set guidelines increasing the weight of high-school grade point averages (GPA) in the admissions process. They also discussed the deadline for each school to submit admissions policies to the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MOE) along with their GPA ratio data. But they failed to reach an agreement.

On June 29, presidents of private colleges opposed to the government-mandated admission policy met. The association of college admission officials has expressed their misgivings about the policy, making the uneasy relationship between the government and school difficult to address.

Thirty-seven officials from Seoul and Gyeonggi and a six-member delegation from the association discussed their positions and ways to deal with the guidelines at Korea Council for University Education yesterday.

Officials from schools at the center of the uneasy relationship--Seoul National, Korea, and Ewha universities--were absent from meeting. On the other hand, a Yonsei university official, who was expected to be absent, appeared.

During the meeting, the delegate presented four ways to include GPAs in their admissions process based on the ‘the government-set mandate of 50 percent.’

The first way proposed was to increase the share of GPA up to 50 percent while setting aside points for each GPA rank on its own. Schools would be allowed to increase their GPA ratio to 30 percent. The second was to make the lowest point rank based on GPA less than 50 percent of a full point. The third was to consider the share of grades--total point ÷ (total GPA points – the lowest points)--by 10 percent. The fourth was to hold each school accountable for their policy and increase their GPA share in the long term.

However, many school officials did not show up, and many disagreements over how to calculate GPA share were presented.

Officials attending the meeting said, “The ways to calculate GPAs and their ratios should be taken up by each school depending on who their applicants are. Some have defied the government by saying that, ‘What is the yardstick of assessing GPA? Should we even agree to the government guidelines?’”

Jeong Wan-yong, the head of the Association of Admission Directors of Universities in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon, said, “We made an effort to discuss two guidelines and will announce admission policy by August 20 along with plans to increase GPA shares. But reaching an agreement was difficult as each school has its own policy.”

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