This Year's CSAT Registration Hits 510,000... Record High Number of Repeat Test Takers Compared to Graduates (Comprehensive)

Unusual Increase in College Entrance Exam Takers Amid Declining School-Age Population
High School Seniors Up by 14,000, Repeat Test Takers Increase by 17,640
Repeat Test Taker Rate Surpasses 30% of Graduates
GED Test Taker Rate Also Rises for 5 Consecutive Years
September Mock Exam Repeat Taker Increase Largely Due to 'Vaccine Effect'

2022 College Scholastic Ability Test Application Results (Data=KICE)

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] The number of high school seniors applying for the 2022 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) has increased, recovering to over 500,000 applicants. Although the proportion of graduates decreased, the ratio of repeat test-takers compared to graduates in February this year reached the highest level since the CSAT was introduced.

According to the "2022 CSAT Application Results" announced by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation on the 6th, the number of CSAT applicants this year was 509,821, a 3.3% (16,387) increase from last year (493,434).

The ratio of repeat test-takers compared to the number of graduates this year is 30.8%, the highest ever recorded. As of February, the number of graduates was 437,950, and the number of repeat test-takers this year was 134,834. This surpasses the previous highest repeat test-taker ratio of 27.9% in the 2006 academic year, following the introduction of the CSAT in 2005.

The ratio of repeat applicants to graduates over the past three years (Source: Jongro Academy)

Compared to last year, the number of high school seniors (360,710) applying for this year's CSAT increased by 4.0% (14,037). The proportion of current students among applicants rose by 0.6 percentage points to 70.8%. Meanwhile, the number of graduates (134,834) increased by only 1,764 compared to last year, and the proportion of repeat test-takers decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 26.4%.

The admissions industry analyzed that considering the decrease of 63,666 graduates compared to last year, the slight increase of 1,764 repeat test-takers is relatively high in terms of growth rate. Lim Seong-ho, CEO of Jongro Academy, explained, "It is normal for repeat test-takers to decrease by about 10,000 when graduates decrease by about 60,000, but this year, repeat test-takers have actually increased significantly."

The proportion of GED graduates taking the CSAT (Data from Jongro Academy)

The proportion of graduates from the qualification exam (GED) has also continued to rise over the past five years. The number of GED graduates applying for the CSAT this year increased by 586 to 14,277 (2.8%). Compared to five years ago, this is a 28.4% increase. CEO Lim explained, "As non-academic areas such as self-introduction letters and award records in the student record comprehensive screening have been continuously reduced, it has become practically impossible to compensate for disadvantages in school grades, and the expansion of regular admissions has accelerated the shift to the GED."

2022 Academic Year CSAT Subject Selection Rates by Area (Source: Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation)

This year's CSAT will be conducted with common and elective subjects in the Korean language and mathematics sections. In the Korean language section, 70.6% (357,976) chose Speech and Writing, overwhelmingly higher than the 29.4% (149,153) who chose Language and Media.

In mathematics, the ratio was divided as 5:4:1. Probability and Statistics accounted for 53.2% (257,466), Calculus 38.2% (184,608), and Geometry 8.6% (41,546). With an increase in science track repeat test-takers, the proportion choosing Calculus and Geometry increased by 1.0 and 1.1 percentage points respectively compared to the June mock exam.

CEO Lim said, "With more science track repeat test-takers choosing Calculus and Geometry, the gap between humanities and science tracks may widen. It is estimated that students who initially chose Probability and Statistics did not switch to Calculus or Geometry due to the high entry barrier moving from humanities to science."

Application rates for math elective subjects in the 2022 and 2021 academic years (Source: Etoos)

Compared to the previous 'Type B' mathematics, the proportion choosing Probability and Statistics this year has significantly decreased. The selection rate for Probability and Statistics is 53.2%, down 13.8 percentage points from last year's 67.0% for Type B mathematics.

Kim Byung-jin, director of the Etoos Education Evaluation Research Institute, explained, "This shows a decreasing trend of students who intended to enter natural sciences with the 'Type B + science exploration' combination but chose Type B due to the burden of math study. Since the CSAT has shifted to an elective subject system, students must study two common subjects regardless of their elective choices, so there is no advantage in reduced study time, and the psychological consensus that Probability and Statistics is necessarily easier has not been established."

The admissions industry believes that many students judged it better to choose the subjects they had been studying regularly, even considering the advantages and disadvantages of elective subjects. CEO Lim analyzed, "Based on education office mock exams and the June and September mock exams, mathematics is likely to be the biggest variable subject with significant advantages and disadvantages between subjects. With the unpredictability of difficulty and advantages in Korean and mathematics elective subjects, the remaining strategic subjects may be the exploration subjects."

With the pharmacy major changing to an integrated 6-year system starting this year, the selection rate for science exploration subjects has also increased. Combining elective subject applicants, the proportion of science exploration applicants this year is 47.3%, up 2.6 percentage points from last year. The proportion of social exploration applicants decreased from 55.3% to 52.7%.

Among exploration subject applicants, 492,442 (98.7%) chose social/science exploration, and 6,362 (1.3%) chose vocational exploration. Among social and science exploration applicants, 32.5% selected 'Life and Ethics.' Among vocational exploration applicants, 95.3% chose the common vocational subject 'Successful Career Life.' The proportion choosing a second foreign language or Chinese characters was 12.0% (61,221). Among them, 25.7% (15,724) chose 'Arabic I.'

Although the number of repeat test-takers increased by more than 30,000 compared to the previous year during the September mock exam due to vaccination benefits, the increase rate of repeat test-takers in the CSAT registration was relatively low. Director Kim analyzed, "There was likely an effect of vaccination benefits on the September mock exam registration, as some had feared."

Regarding this, a Ministry of Education official explained, "Usually, about 90,000 to 100,000 take the September mock exam, and about 140,000 take the CSAT. Since vaccines were a sensitive issue at the time, the number of September mock exam applicants increased. It is better to get vaccinated and prepare for admissions stably, and there were likely various factors beyond just vaccine-related fluctuations."

Meanwhile, the 2022 CSAT will be held on November 18.

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