<p>I took the Korean SAT today (a high school student in SK planning to study abroad for colleges, but happened to take one this year), and it was friggin exhausting. Just imagine taking SAT 1 and four SAT 2 subject tests in ONE day. (btw you'd usually get to have breaks every 100 minutes in average)</p>
<p>In the US we call them SATs</p>
<p>Good luck to those South Korean students who have taken their tests today. May their sanity remain intact.</p>
<p>"I know this is not exactly how Korea works things but if everything was based on a test- things would be so much easier for everyone, either you go to a top college or not- lol."</p>
<p>Mondo, Trust me, it will NOT be so much easier for everyone. That just shows how little you know about this pathetic, soul-killing system</p>
<p>GPAx213: It's not the admission rate that's the problem. The problem is that even people that graduate from SNU have trouble getting full time jobs. It's not like here where a top school grad would be courting 6 different offers before graduating. You could graduate from SNU but it doesn't do **** unless you pass a test that tells you if you're eligible to interview for jobs. You do all that crap, and in one of the most expensive cities in the world (Seoul-more expensive than NYC, LA, Paris or Tokyo apparently-and I believe it), the starting pay is 16,000,000 Korean Won per annum, which is about $15k a year. If you make it up to a middle managerial position, which is all done based on seniority by the way, you'll be lucky to pull in $35k.</p>
<p>Ugh, that exam is longer than the LSAT (which I get to take in a year or two...yay! :rolleyes:) and as long as the New York State Bar exam, which is also in my future. And the world doesn't stand still for us when we take the bar or the LSAT....</p>
<p>yeah bottom line is we Koreans are crazy and we're proud son!</p>
<p>It is sad how hundreds of thousands of Korean children are sent to the United States to pursue a better education, a better life. This weakens the Korean education system even further, and continues the vicious cycle of intense competition to get into the top 3 colleges (it seems like there are ONLY 3 colleges in Korea), only to graduate and be jobless. Furthermore, it causes even more intense comepetition here in America. Young minds of CC, let us not forget what we left in Korea and after we graduate from our respective colleges, give a hand in reforming the education system and save the future generations of similar agony.</p>
<p>On a lighter note, the new CSI episode today was all about Koreans! Yay!</p>
<p>I think the system in Korea's so broken it's beyond fixing. The whole system needs to be scrapped and they need to restart from scratch.</p>
<p>I love how (seemingly) all Koreans who are posting seem to have a negative image of Korea and think it's bad.</p>
<p>From what I've read, it doesn't seem that bad - one test, and etc...is it that bad over there? I'm part Korean (as in, I have some % of its blood in me), but I don't have a single clue what anything's about there.</p>
<p>Invoyable-there's a reason why we're here. And it's not because we liked it there.</p>
<p>Mm, I'll say. I'm glad my parents decided to come over here. I don't want to imagine how much more stressful a Korean education would have been with all the after school hakwon, etc.. You know what they say over there, 4 hours of sleep you get into your top choice, 5 hours and you get rejected.</p>
<p>Oh well, at least South Korea doesn't seem as bad as North Korea. I saw a video where some reporter was interviewing kids (heavily guarded of course) and the kid said</p>
<p>"I love Shrek! But I hate america" Apparently these kids seem to think their great leader created shrek.</p>
<p>My school has quite a few Korean exchange students and they were talking about this insanity today. Seriously, the SAT is a Pre-Algebra pop quiz compared to this thing. And don't forget that insane China one that decides whether you will work in an office/science lab or an assembly line!</p>
<p>The thing is....you can't fix this system in Korea. With limited sources of work in a small chunk of land, only a few has to accel and obtain the top spots, whereas the rest fights for below....so although indubitably corrupt and horrible, the system has to stay to retain the reality in Korea</p>
<p>If I were in South Korea, I probably wouldn't have made it through high school as I would have probably jumped out in front of a subway.</p>
<p>I spent a few years in elementary school there and my sixth grade teacher predicted that if I stayed there I wouldn't have made it through middle school and recommended to my mom that she take me someplace else. He must be the only teacher in South Korea that has any sense in him. Sent his own kid overseas I think. It's not just the academics though. I'm shy and introverted which would have made me a prime target for bullying. People like me get bullied and beaten up in South Korean schools every day, and the teachers don't do anything about it (at least in public school-I went to private school so my mom notified the teacher and phone calls were made after I came home crying).</p>
<p>tsh-I believe that any system can be fixed, recreated, rebuilt. England and Belgium have a much smaller landmass and we don't see the same problem there either. The corrupt, incompetent politicians are too lazy to fix it. They can start with the way they teach English-my friends that went through the whole system in Korea could probably score a 650 on the TOEFL, but can't speak a word in anything resembling fluent, and are impressed when I can speak French. Don't you learn a language to speak it? You haven't learned a language if you can't speak it. You've learned a language test. Very different.</p>
<p>I live on the West Coast and there are a lot of korean students here who come just to go to high school in America. I honestly can not blame them.</p>
<p>i was like little above average in korea,
here in texas, at a school of 675 students in my class (sent 2 kids to harvard, 1 yale, 1 stanford, and so on last year), i am a valedictorian! i love my parents</p>
<p>The SATs are not offered in China..... Mainland Chinese students must fly to Hong Kong or Singapore correct??</p>
<p>Poor tiny island. Can you imagine these Chinese students who just happen to drive by the Hong Kong's Disneyland on the way to the test center? :-( The conflict of emotions must be very intense.</p>
<p>Some people on this thread are talking about how they wish college admissions in the U.S. is like this - based on one test. I really have to disagree. Theses tests in China and Korea aren't like the standardized tests here, where if you do all the questions and learn everything in high school you can score a perfect score. They're almost IMPOSSIBLY hard. Each one is like a competition, where you're not suppose to pass but tested to see how far you can go. I'm a pretty good standardized test taker but I can't imagine having one test determine my future and knowing that no matter how hard I studied, there was still a lot that I couldn't do.</p>