NYTimes: "Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills"

Applying to College
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<p>Well the Minjok and the Daewon guys are some of the most brilliant high school students in Korea, and maybe even the world.
I would have to say that those guys are very lucky because they do get to pursue extra curricular activities and participate in some genuinely intellectual discussions.
However, these guys are the cream of the crop, and the real victims are ordinary high school students aiming to get into the SKY Universities (seoul, korea, and yonsei, which are the top three universities in Korea), who do not get to participate in the wide variety of extra curriculars and intellectual pursuits offered to the minjok guys and instead must study from 7 AM to 2 AM in school and in after-school programs.
Let me reiterate that the Minjok and Daewon guys are cream of the crop in Korea and they usually possess the rare gift of extraordinary intelligence combined with relentless motivation and drive. </p>

<p>However, I still wouldn’t trade my life as an American (and previously Canadian) high schooler for that of a Minjok student.</p>

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<p>I second on what bascket circle said</p>

<p>People really need to see beyond what media tells them, otherwise you get someone with as narrow mind as who says this</p>

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<p>Plain absurdity. You please say that in front of any Asian harvard graduate, not in an anonymous, public online space.</p>

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<p>Korea is not that poor anymore. Usually the elite in Korea are paid very well, even by American standards, and if not, they can easily find work in the United States.</p>

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<p>“However, I still wouldn’t trade my life as an American high schooler for that of a Minjok student.”</p>

<p>well, i’m very grateful for the opportunities given for me as a student at minjok.
kh892, you might not because ur american having grown up in the states (if i’m right)
i’d have to say i learned many valueable aspects of life coming this school as you might have in the US. i think its not the matter of what school we attend, its more about how we live our life and what we learn from the unique experiences in our life. i think in this context, we both win in that we love our lives just being who we are, not because of what school we go to.</p>

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<p>There seems to be more Korean posts. lol. America has gone to sleep but for the other half of the world it’s still day. It’s like 3-ish right?</p>

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<p>Unlike what some people said here, my south Korean friends are really friendly, they are smart but are not insane, they are actually more laid back than you can even think.</p>

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<p>You didn’t understand my point.</p>

<p>The Korean education system is successful in sending its students to the top universities in the United States. The numbers show this.</p>

<p>The universities reward the Korean education system.</p>

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<p>Well, you said this regarding the whole “korean education system”, not just about those two elite schools. Very Very few from Korea as a whole will make it to Ivies, esp HYP. Those two are the elite schools who took the brightest of the country to begin with, and trained them hardcore. The majority of high schools in Korea won’t send a single grad to any ivy.</p>

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<p>i agree with patless88</p>

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<p>I am certain the going to Minjok has made you and your fellow students better people, just as going through the Canadian and American education system has made me into a better person.
But let’s face it, I am nowhere near your caliber, and I would not enjoy the environment at Minjok or Daewon. This is a matter of mere personal opinion and I say this with the utmost respect to the brilliant students at minjok. But you must remember that your intelligence has provided an alternate route that is quite unlike education for most Koreans. </p>

<p>I was born in Korea and socio-economically speaking, I am part of the relatively well off, living-in-gangnam (well we lived very close to there haha) set. I am quite certain that had I stayed in Korea, I would have not gotten into minjok or daewon and instead would have been subject to the Korean meat-grinder that many of my cousins are going through right now. </p>

<p>My father initially went to Canada with his family to earn an MBA at about the time I was a 3rd grader. After he completed his degree, he and mom decided to raise his children here because they preferred the Canadian educational system. We later moved to the United States when I was an incoming junior.</p>

<p>I am nowhere as gifted as you, and for merely above-average students such as me, the North American educational system provides a much better experience than the Korean one. </p>

<p>In the fall, I will start to attend Cornell university. It is no HYPS, but there is no way that I could have had the opportunity to attend such an excellent school had my parents decided to raise me in Korea. </p>

<p>I guess my point is that these minjok guys actually have it good compared to the majority of Korean students.</p>

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<p>[Economy</a> of South Korea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Korea]Economy”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Korea)</p>

<p>Before continued posting in this thread - maybe everyone should read that page. Honestly, it’s amazing.</p>

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<p>Dear Non-Asians,</p>

<p>You have no clue. You literally have no IDEA what school means in Asia. I’m sorry. You think the US system favors ‘rote memorization’, it’s soulless and wayyy to hard, that we should make it easier and emphasize more discussion and talking about things?</p>

<p>The US education system is a joke compared to Asia. Those guys are in deep in the process of taking our lunch and eating it for us. They’re taking our jobs, our industries, our stranglehold on good science and new inventions…one day we’re going to wake up and wish we’d worked as hard in high school as Asian students.</p>

<p>Asian students, especially ones competitive for US schools, are extremely qualified. Capable. Intelligent. And above all, hardworking. They are SICK at math. Whoever got 2250 - good job, that’s par for the course in Korea, and don’t forget, they’re doing it IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. They’re scoring roughly 750 in Reading and Writing - IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. You couldn’t do that on your LIFE in Spanish, French, Latin, German LANGUAGE, let alone if you had to take History, Government, and other reading/writing intensive humanities APs. You’re at 1st year of college level in Spanish, if you take 5 years of Spanish (as I did) culminating in AP-level. And introductory college Spanish course DOES NOT EQUAL fluent in Spanish. That’s 4 years of college Spanish plus study abroad, and then I’ll agree you’re fluent. All these Koreans and Chinese…they’re attaining a scary level of fluency, in a totally foreign language, in high school, in MULTIPLE LANGUAGES, and not only that. They’re taking math WAY beyond BC calculus. To whoever was so proud that they were in BC calc (“shouldn’t the Koreans be in graduate-level math?”)…uh, yeah, many of them have already taken multivariable calc and higher-level elective courses by the time they get to college. Compu sci, physics, chem…they’re also high-achieving in all these disciplines. Moreover, it’s not just that they’ve taken the higher level classes in quantitative stuff so much as it’s, they’re scary good at it! They’re incredibly quick on the uptake, they get eeeeeasy A’s in college math/science, they THINK comfortably in mathematical terms, because they’re incredible quantitative reasoners, and they pick that up from the constant repetition they’re forced to undergo in school. I did BC calc too, senior year, but my math skills aren’t worth a flying ****. If I took a college math course, I’d get maybe a B, B- unless I worked way hard…but math is definitely not my strong suit. </p>

<p>The key to the Koreans’ and Asians’ success, then, is this: their AVERAGE STUDENT is as good as our TOP STUDENT. Their strong suits are across the board! Their AVERAGE is as good as our TOP STUDENTS!!! Their regular middle class students are competitive with the best, upper-class, magnet-school or Phillips Exeter bred nerd-a-thons! They are EQUALLY STRONG in all subjects, because they’re forced to be that way! And that’s where all the time goes, to achieving extremely advanced results across the entire board! I’m telling you, you have no idea of the capabilities of Asian students, collectively and also the top rung. Their top rung may not be a great deal more intelligent than our top rung, I’ll concede, but the thing is, there is a much wider and deeper set of middle-of-the-road students over there who are just as good or better than the students here who are just beneath the top rung, top rung being 4.0 GPA at HYP, and just beneath referring to HYP admitted/other top schools. Their middle-of-road are the ones getting in to HYP by the truckload, and their top students are the ones getting all the i-banking jobs coming right out of those places, and making $150k a year+.</p>

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<p>i’m extremely good verbally: full score with no prep. writing, same thing. i don’t work hard though, and i suck at math. if i was an asian student though, i’d be perfect in all those, top grades, …</p>

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<p>[Daewon</a> Foreign Language High School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daewon_Foreign_Language_High_School]Daewon”>Daewon Foreign Language High School - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>This entry is written by someone (or some people) who go there. It’s obviously written by a non-native English speaker (small mistakes, certain incorrect usages of words) but it’s SCARY FLUENT. </p>

<p>And they speak 4 LANGUAGES THAT WELL.</p>

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<p>The last time I checked, Japan is going through severe economic stagnation, China still has not gotten significantly beyond manufacturing and South Korea’s economic growth has stalled since the US housing market downturn. East Asia is progressing economically, but don’t give us too much credit.</p>

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<p>These types make up a tiny, tiny fraction of Korean students. Yes these students are capable and intelligent, but once again you give us too much credit. These students are the elite, academically speaking, of Korea. </p>

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<p>If you had formulas drilled into your head from day one, and i mean drilled, you would be as good as them. But you don’t want that now, do you? Once again, you give us way too much credit. </p>

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<p>Korea’s educational system as it exists today is a near carbon copy of the Japanese system, which as existed in its current form since the Meiji restoration in the 1860s (correct me if I am wrong). Now, Japan, which has had its soul-crushing memorization-a-thon education system for centuries, should have taken over the world by now with their SUPER ASIANS. But they haven’t.</p>

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<p>Actually, the article says that these top schools did not send anyone to Harvard this year. Certainly not a truckload.
You think our education system is an assembly line of SUPER ASIANS that could take over the world any day. You give us too much credit and your own country too little. The United States has the vast majority of the best universities in the world. It still leads the world in technological innovation. It is still the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth. Now, there are serious problems with American public education, but the US is doing something right. </p>

<p>The United States is not going to be taken over by SUPER ASIANS anytime soon. The investment banks, elite universites are still white as snow percentages wise and I do not see that changing anytime soon.</p>

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<p>Bring up my thread, please.</p>

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<p>People should get a life in my humble opinion. There is more to life than mere materialism.</p>

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<p>Amazing … So those are the kind of international students that the Ivies want.
I guess they are not ‘an academic risk’ since they have been excelling in a us patterned curriculum. What about the others who are following their country’s educational system and who do not have the opportunity to take AP classes …etc ?</p>

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I should probably be flattered by how much (largely undeserved, frankly - we’re not superhuman)credit you give our schooling systems, but to be honest I’m more amused by just how worked up you are. Your rant is stereotyped and largely untrue. That’s that.</p>

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<p>Yeah. It was 4 in the morning.</p>

<p>;)</p>