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

Applying to College
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<p>A Korean exchange student is living with our family. I don’t want to give too many details, but I must say that according to what I have gleaned from him, the Korean educational system is very much dominated by rote memorization. (He performed his FIRST experiment on his first day in school here.) He seemed to be about a year advanced in math, but his science preparation is if anything deficient. He seems to have little or no intellectual curiosity, and literally never reads books. He does what he is told, and no more, and doesn’t understand the degree to which top US students are expected to be self-directed. He has very unrealistic goals in terms of admittance to elite US schools. </p>

<p>I have the feeling that he is much more typical of Korean students than the occasional superstar who self-studies for 9 APs and the like. In Korea, he attended a private school. (Apparently, the really talented science and math students attend public magnet schools along the lines of Bronx Science. )</p>

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<p>memorization is not learning. learning means understanding the concept. -_-';;</p>

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<p>The part about the couple made me laugh.</p>

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<p>I actually have three Koreans homies, they are smarties but they are also nice cookies. I also met a chineese engineer who told me that in their education system, it is all about memorization (bad engl. but you got it) He said that he learnt all thsoe math thing but would never be able to use his brain to create something substantial in life. I also tend to just memorize things ( math) but I never do as well as those kids so why do they succeed and I don’t if we use almost the same method? I do recognize their level of smartness but why not me? :rolleyes:</p>

<p>I am good in political science, history, philo, religious study, geography, general culture but all I want is to be a good math student, a good physician, a good programer. So why don’t the humanities leave me alone and let me what I want to be? :(</p>

<p>I do value learning over memorization but sometimes it’s just so good to get a 2100 /2400 on the SAT. After all it’s better like that than having a poor score that will make colleges reject you when the stupid score cannot really reflect how well you will do in college.</p>

<p>I wish that I were a nerd:cool: I really do and I would beat the Korean kids in the International Smart People Competition :eek:</p>

<p>Begining Next Semester, no this summer, I will officialy become a NERD and study my ax off. I won’t care about what people say:mad: and when I will get out of colleges, I will speak seven languages fluently. :p</p>

<p>I was told by my teachers that I am a perfectionist, so I don’t want to be a perfectionist anymore but I want to be an overachiver. I want to get a perfect GPA, but I will also do ECs for fun. Let’s see if I will go crazy and mad ;)</p>

<p>I know that I am unreallistic and sound dumb but it really hurt me when the scores hurt my chances.
I would not advise anyone to try to be a “perfectionist” in the negative context. While you will do it to achieve something, you will end up with nothing and screw up your life , your physical and your mental health. Personal experience</p>

<p>srry, I played a little bit with the smilies because I just found their codes.</p>

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<p>Being of korean ancestry, I really hate to see this happening. It’s disgusting. And the pure positive results of all this madness is absolutely nothing. I saw my 10 year old cousin studying until 12 at night. Do we inflict such madness on our fifth graders here in America?
In Korea, college is actually considered to be a lot easier than HS. I think that’s just absurd. What’s the point of working so hard just to slack off later in college? They work hard to get into the best colleges and slow things down once they get there. At college is where they basically fall behind their American counterparts in education. What’s even more skewed is the fact that korea places such a high emphasis on prestige. For example, graduating from SNU will guarantee a good job while graduating from the lower level college drastically destroys any job opportunities. Basically, if this principle was applied to America, all our current executives, CEOs, presidents, government officials and elite class would have graduated from an Ivy League, especially Harvard. It sounds ridiculous but it’s the exact truth in Korea.</p>

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<p>Question: Why are people criticizing these methods? Their students, on average, are <em>far</em> more learned than ours and simple tests on numeracy prove it.</p>

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<p>^^^^ Being able to learn is one thing, knowing how to apply what you have learned to society is another. These kids can learn but the question is can they apply what they learn in the real world? </p>

<p>In the class room these kids would pwn me big time, but i honestly think i could do better in a real world job.</p>

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<p>If life were all about book-learning, then these kids have got it right.
Unfortunately, it isn’t. </p>

<p>All this knowledge won’t get you anywhere if you can’t apply it. And especially if you can’t communicate it.</p>

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<p>I am very agree with what Consolation said.</p>

<p>I am an Asian student.When I have a church meeting with some of the students, they mostly are PHd or Master degree from an elite universities. When i talk to them or handle things with them, they just being told to do so. I was shock when i first time to meet them since I expected those people are more energetic and outgoing. Also, they are not very socialable and interactive.But some like my uncle, he also graduated from a top US university who is really unlike them.</p>

<p>Even in Hong Kong, i attended some English classes last summer. There have some students who are studying Doctor, master and college degree. Some of them doesn’t look smart, they seem work really hard to achieve their degree.</p>

<p>But in Asia, the reality is, you have to work hard to get your degree and get a ticket to enter the competitive workforce.</p>

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<p>"^^^^ Being able to learn is one thing, knowing how to apply what you have learned to society is another. These kids can learn but the question is can they apply what they learn in the real world? </p>

<p>In the class room these kids would pwn me big time, but i honestly think i could do better in a real world job."</p>

<p>wait…what kind of question is this? Korea was a third world country sickened by wars and incessant poverty only 4 to 5 decades ago. Today, it is top 10 richest country in the world. Koreans had to sow much sweat, tear, and blood both in the classrooms and in the real world to catch up with the rest of the world and today, as a society and economy, this country has become very successful. It takes a great deal of intelligence and efforts to survive as the top in the Korean education setting. These kids, as I am very confident, are more than capable of applying themselves as well in the real world.</p>

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<p>The American education system is not perfect, and the Korean education system is not perfect either.
However, as a Korean, I believe that Korean education is more in need of fundamental reform. </p>

<p>The emphasis on rote memorization and test assassination can train brilliant scientists and engineers, but the process of getting into a top Korean university (never mind an Ivy League school) is soul-crushing, and I would have to say that very rarely do you get Koreans who are passionate about the subjects they learn like you do in the United States. Any love they may have had for math is quickly snuffed out by soul-crushing formula memorization. Korean undergraduate admissions is strictly by-the-numbers, which leaves no room for those with genuinely interesting life experiences or genuine intellectual curiosity and rather admits the best memorizers into the top universities.
The problem is compounded by the fact that in Korean society, your undergraduate school is far more important than it is in the United States. Oftentimes, my white peers ask me why Asian parents are so obsessed into getting their children into Stanford or UC Berkeley. This is because the Asian parents come from a society where the college that you go to in your 20s quite literally determines your place in society for the rest of your life.
Going to a good university in the United States is important, but in Korea, going to a good university is everything. </p>

<p>The educational system there obviously is not good for the students, but it is not good for the country as a whole either. You may get mathematicians who know everything or lawyers who have memorized the whole civil code, but you rarely get creative thinkers and as Korea heads into the 21st century, this will become a significant problem.</p>

<p>One anecdote that is a good illustration is this: Koreans created the first commercially available mp3 player but Americans created the iPod. Korean engineers were plainly skilled enough to create a new type of portable music player, but there were no marketers or executives creative enough or with enough initiative to turn the mp3 player into the iPod. Koreans invented the mp3 player only to beaten by the Americans who plainly had more marketing savvy, and of course, the type of initiative that the Korean education system sucks out of its students. </p>

<p>The students at Daewon foriegn school and Minjok academy are only symtopmatic of the greater problems of the Korean education system as a whole.</p>

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<p>Is that so?</p>

<p>One of my new favorite social statistics is “Patent Production per Capita”. It correlates extremely highly with wealth and economic growth. Korea’s is the highest in the entire world. I would be surprised if in 10-15 years the average standard of living is higher than the US.</p>

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<p>I am surprised by these attacks on this board on Korean educational culture. Sure, there are some flaws with it, one being that it may lack the ‘creativity’ side of the education. However, this educational setting is a mere reflection of the Korean tradition and culture. Korea is ranked to be the country with the longest work hours for an average worker in the world, followed closely by Japan coming in second. Many Korean salarymen work from 7 in the morning until well after 10 pm. This isn’t abnormal in the Korean or Japanese society at all, and a bunch of my friends’ parents worked like this. Sure, Korean students have to work hard too, probably harder than almost 99.9% of the hs population in the world. But, this tradition of “working hard” has been rooted in the deep backbone of the Korean society and idealism, and the high school education is a mere reflection of this Korean culture and ideals. Attacking the educational system of Korea, without knowing much about the country, isn’t well founded. Unfortunately, this intensive educational setting has to exist to keep up with Korea’s intensive and stressful society. It is not like the Koreans only ‘force’ the students so that they can learn more things and only get into top colleges. It is much deeper than that.</p>

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<p>Interesting point, kh892.</p>

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<p>WTH are all of you talking about with the “memorization” and Korean students aren’t able to “apply it to the real world.”</p>

<p>Pulling big test scores on standardized tests requires you to understand the concepts. Just memorizing facts won’t help you. If it did, the tests would be too easy and everyone would score big.</p>

<p>I agree that being rounded is ideal, but when competition is this fierce, you’re forced to play the game or lose.</p>

<p>These kids don’t have big asian movie stars, professional asian athletes to aspire to become. Their ticket out of lower-middle class is through the books.</p>

<p>And looking at the numbers of Korean students in top Universities, the Korean education system “methods” seem to be working.</p>

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<p>This education system is not a mere reflection on the Korean tradition and culture.</p>

<p>It is a reflection on the educational system in America and other top countries with top universities. The numbers show this.</p>

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<p>What other “top” countries practice this kind of intensive education at high school level? The Korean education setting, I repeat, has a lot to do with its work force, culture, ideals. </p>

<p>To be more specific, kh892 mentioned how the undergrad college in Korea is everything, unlike the U.S. where they value the grad schools more. It is because Korean society wants to filter out only the brightest, strongest, and the most motivated at high school stage through standardized method of providing rigorous academics. Surely, only the best survive as the top. Then, these students would attend the top colleges, upon which, they enter a specific “career track”. It is rare that someone who went to an inferior college in Korea would be able to jump into this “elite Career Track” dominated by the elites. This is practiced this way in order to bring the best work force and the smartest into the mainsteam society of Korea in the fastest and most efficient manner possible. This has been working, at least partially, as Korea has been experiencing a major economic stability and improvement over the years. So, yes, the korean education is a reflection of the Korean culture and ideals and it has also to do with the work force. And, your claim that Korean education is centered around the U.S. schools or the like are completely false. The Korean administration of education borrowed its ideas and methods heavily from Japan in early 70s.</p>

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O.O" I only study until 11 at night, and even that’s pushing it for my parents.</p>

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<p>omg, i go to one of the two schools (minjok) and i would have to say what you guys think of our school is bit different from reality. the article is kind of media thing: sorting out facts/words to be fit into the theme- “elite korean schools forging ivy league skills.” We do have variety of extracurricular activities: a person participates in average 5-6 clubs. we do have parties and fun too. well great emphasis on academics is true but it’s not just brutal harsh rote-memorization as u guys think. some people actually take 12-15 AP exams during their hs yrs but most take less than 10. the school curriculum is made up of debate-based, research-based classes. some ppl here even publish their research on int’/national academic journal. it cannot be a result of mere memorization. there are two ISEF finalists in senior class (about 70 people), which cannot be the result of memorization as well. its not just limited to science/engineering field. Like in other schools, there are ppl who want to pursue humanities… one of the graduates wanted to film major and she won second place in disney international film script contest thing. it is common to have one or two research done by the time of graduation. here’s an example of history research paper by minjok students - [WHKMLA</a> : Students’ Papers](<a href=“http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/studentspapers.html]WHKMLA”>WHKMLA : Students' Papers). people here play sports too. about 10 varsity sports team compete in state(doh) level. well my point is minjok students do not spend 15 hours of a day simply reading AP prep books and memorizing them. we are humans too. oh the security cameras were taken away years ago due to privacy issue.</p>

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<p>Traditional Korean culture does put a huge emphasis on work ethic, however, this is breaking down - modern culture has brought to Korea its own celebrities and sports stars and the accompanying slew of wannabe kids. </p>

<p>One may say that the educational system is a reflection on Korean tradition and culture, but I would have to say that in this case, it is a reflection on tradition and culture that have to be reformed. </p>

<p>Korea’s education system served it very well from the 60s to the 2000s when formula crunchers and workers used to long hours were needed for rapid economic growth. I do concede that the Korean educational system played a huge role in Korea’s economic miracle (for those who do not know: Korea in the 1960s was as poor as most countries in Africa): The educational system trained a generation of efficient workers and prodigious engineers who spearheaded the economic miracle. </p>

<p>But Korea is no longer poor as Africa and the educational system has become a handicap to growth. </p>

<p>Future growth will depend on initiative, entrepreneurship, and more than just pure work and number crunching. Korea will have to learn to work smarter, and not just harder. Our present education system is quite inept at training the type of people that are going to be needed to drive the country forward.</p>