Will Fairness Improve... Current 11th Graders Face Increased Regular Admission Quota for University Entrance Exams

Korean Council for University Education Announces 2022 College Admission Plan
Increase in Regular Admission Selection Ratio
Regular Admissions Account for 24.3% of Total Enrollment

Comprehensive Student Record Selections Decrease by 6,580
90.3% of Regular Admissions Selected via CSAT

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[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] In the college admission process for current high school sophomores, the proportion of regular admission selection is increasing, and the admission process is being simplified.

The Korea Council for University Education announced the 2022 academic year college admission implementation plan for 198 four-year universities nationwide on the 29th. According to Article 34-5 of the Higher Education Act, each university must establish and announce the college admission implementation plan at least 1 year and 10 months before the admission year.

The total number of college admission spots for the 2022 academic year is 346,553. Among them, regular admissions account for about 24.3%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points compared to the previous year. The increase in the proportion of regular admissions is due to the Ministry of Education’s announcement last November of measures to strengthen fairness in college admissions, which led 16 universities located in Seoul to expand the proportion of regular (CSAT) admissions. Among these universities, including Korea University and Yonsei University, nine increased the CSAT weight to 40%. Other universities also increased their recruitment ratio by more than 30%, and it is expected that most universities will achieve a regular admission ratio of over 40% in the 2023 academic year.

The college admission process maintains a simplification policy where early admissions focus on school records, and regular admissions focus on the CSAT. Among the 262,378 early admission spots, 86.9% are selected based on school records. The majority are based on school record coursework, followed by comprehensive evaluation. The number of comprehensive school record selections decreases by 6,580 compared to the previous year. For regular admissions, 90.3% are selected based on the CSAT.

From the 2022 academic year, the special admission for equal opportunity must be conducted, increasing the number of selected students by 1.8 percentage points to 53,546 compared to the previous year. The number of regional talent special admissions selected under the Local University Promotion Act increased from 4.8% to 6% of the total, totaling 20,783.

The early admission application period is from September 10 to 14 next year, and successful candidates will be announced on December 16 of the same year. Regular admission applications will be accepted from December 3 of next year to January 3 of the following year, with successful candidates announced on February 8, 2022.

With the restructuring of the CSAT system into a 'common + elective' structure, universities designate different CSAT elective subjects. For Korean, all universities have Reading and Literature as common subjects, and applicants choose one subject from Language and Media or Speech and Writing. Mathematics Ⅰ and Ⅱ are common subjects without distinction between humanities and sciences, but 56 universities require applicants to natural science departments to choose one subject from Calculus or Geometry. In the social studies and science inquiry areas, applicants can choose two subjects regardless of humanities or sciences, but 62 universities designate science inquiry, and 2 universities designate social studies inquiry.

The Korea Council for University Education will produce a booklet of the main points and distribute it to high schools, metropolitan and provincial offices of education, and related institutions. It is scheduled to be posted on the College Admission Information Portal website in July.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.