<p>I totally agree with the post above. I’m Korean and I did hear about changing letters on the transcripts and the cheating thing, like, some years before and was pretty shocked.</p>
<p>But I don’t think Americans should suddenly go feeling sorry for themselves because it seems much “easier” for Koreans. It isn’t. I mean I know it’s busy busy busy in America because you have all the academics and extracurricular activities to do but in Korea, most schools only focus on the academics. It’s so hard to make time to do ecs in high school. </p>
<p>You’ll be surprised to know how many hours we spend sitting on our butts. Like, we have so called zero period, although it has been abolished, private schools still have it. We have eight periods and stay school till 9 or 10 pm. I even had a friend who went to a school that had minus one period where they practiced English listening skills before the zero period. Making time for ecs is pretty hard. Even after school most students go straight to private institutions where they study until 12 pm and come home just to sit down with a tutor for two hours before sleep and then wake up at six o’clock in the morning and repeat the same thing every single day for three years of high school. This goes true for most Korean students. I mean Americans will be amazed by the whole Korean educational system and what Korean students go through. It’s a very serious problem in Korea, and the root of the problem is so deep that it’s considered insolvable. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to defend the Hanyoung students who cheated but I do stand for the general hard-working Korean students who face so many obstacles in their pursuits of going to colleges in US. I hope people don’t assume that what the article said is true for every korean schools. I was pretty angry myself when I heard all that Hanyoung students stuff and I do think they’ll pay the price once they get to America.</p>