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3> New grading system perplexes students (2007.11.24)

New grading system perplexes students


Students planning to enter university next year are having trouble adjusting to the new grading system for the college entrance exam, which divides students into nine bands, rather than giving absolute scores.

The College Scholastic Aptitude Test results, to be distributed on Dec. 12, will only show one of nine percentiles for each subject - the top 4 percent, the next 7 percent, 12 percent, 17 percent, 20 percent, 17 percent, 12 percent, 7 percent and the bottom 4 percent.

Universities are receiving a rush of phone calls from students asking whether they can be admitted with their CSAT scores and high school grades. But the schools explain that they are unable to provide adequate answers, as they do not have previous data to refer to.

"We get dozens of calls every day about what level of grades is needed to enter certain departments," said an admissions official at Hongik University.

"We give them last year's data for their reference but we don't know how much help that would be under the new system."

A senior high school student surnamed Park scored Level 1 grades in three out of the four CSAT subjects, but has given up on going to college this year because he scored Level 3 in Korean language.

"I can't make it to a top-tier school without scoring Level 1s in all the subjects," Park said. "The new grading system is good for all-round students but others should be given a chance, too."

Students also complain that, since tens of thousands of students are put together in a single level, it is hard to decide which universities they should apply for.

"It's like starting to measure in meters what was formerly measured in millimeters," a second-time CSAT-taker, surnamed Lee, said. "Those who get Level 2s by a short head would feel even more depressed (compared to when the raw marks were given)."

For some subjects, the number of Level 5 scorers is expected to reach 110,000, according to Kim Yong-geun, an executive with Jongno hagwon, a private institute.

"The highest and lowest scorers in a group of 110,000 are regarded as the same," Kim said. "Confusion is pretty obvious for students of all levels."

The government had announced three years ago that it would enforce the nine-level grading system from this year, after providing both the raw score and the percentile level since 2002.

The change was intended to shift emphasis from the CSAT to high school grades for college entrance, part of the government's policy to normalize public education. Previously, students were ranked based on the combined scores of four CSAT subjects. High school grades and essays had been minor factors for college entrance.

Following the change, however, high schools became more generous with grades, in order to send more students to prestigious universities, and universities turned their focus back to the CSAT and essay writing, saying the school records appeared to make little difference.

The Korea Development Institute urged in a report released earlier this week that the government "stop meddling with education." It advised the government to grant universities autonomy to pick the students they want.

The state-controlled college entrance system in Korea has gone through 15 major changes and about 50 small ones, changing slightly almost every year.


By Kim So-hyun


([email protected])






2007.11.24

[Snowmeow]

That's unfortunate for the students who are extremely strong and well motivated in certain subject areas but merely above average in others, such as "Park" in the article above.

[Typhoon]

If Korean schools evaluated honestly there would be no problem. The problem is that cheating and "bending" the truth is so ingrained into the culture that the schools can't grade students properly. It is pretty scary actually. No wonder those that can afford to go to the west do go.