Early Admission Successful Candidates Announced One After Another... Overnight 'Refresh' and Confused 'Saeng2' Examinees

Error 20 All Correct Responses
Standard Score Highest Point Drops by 1
Mixed Feelings Over Lower-than-Expected Grades

On the 16th, examinees participating in the '2022 College Admission Information Fair' held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, are receiving consultations to obtain college admission information. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

"There has been a score change among the top ranks, causing confusion among students who took Life Science II." (High school teacher in charge of admissions)

Immediately after the ruling to cancel the correct answer for Life Science II in the 2022 College Scholastic Ability Test, the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation treated all answers as correct, and universities began announcing early admission results from the 15th. Many students who took Life Science II were bewildered by the lower-than-expected scores and grades.

As of the 16th, universities that announced early admission results include Sungkyunkwan University, Hanyang University, Soongsil University (SSU Future Admission), Seoul Women’s University, and Myongji University. Many examinees stayed up all night refreshing the admissions office homepage, hoping the announcement schedule would be moved up. A high school senior said, "I didn’t do well on the CSAT, but I kept refreshing the homepage hoping to get accepted at least at one early admission. I’m worried and scared, but I want the results to come out quickly."

The rescored Life Science II results brought mixed feelings among examinees. Compared to the scoring results announced on the 10th, the highest standard score for Life Science II examinees dropped by 1 point to 68, while the number of students achieving the highest score increased from 6 to 13. The cutoff for the top grade (1st grade) rose from 65 to 66 points. The number of students who received the 1st grade decreased by 40 to 269. The cutoff for the 2nd grade remained the same at 63 points, but the number of students in that grade decreased by 79 to 508.

Some students near the grade boundary failed to meet the minimum grade criteria and were disqualified. A high school teacher in Seoul explained, "The difference in standard scores between the 1st and 2nd grades for Life Science II was small, and the grades predicted based on raw scores during provisional scoring changed, causing some students’ admission results to differ."

Among Life Science II examinees, many are top students in the natural sciences, including medical and pharmaceutical fields. This year, many students achieved the highest scores in the mathematics section in the natural sciences, increasing the discriminative power of science subjects, making it more difficult to devise admission strategies.

The Ministry of Education and the University Education Council changed the early admission announcement date once from the 16th to the 18th, and although the ruling date was moved up, the early admission schedule was not readjusted. The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation provided universities with scores based on both maintaining the original correct answers and treating all answers as correct to reduce confusion. After the court ruling, the institute decided to treat question number 20 as correct for all and not to appeal.

Due to the postponement of the early admission schedule, the additional early admission registration period at each university was delayed by one day, while the regular admission schedule remained unchanged, complicating the formulation of regular admission strategies. It became difficult to estimate the number of students rolling over from early to regular admissions, and the change in the CSAT system from last year must also be considered.

An admissions industry official said, "With changes in the number of CSAT examinees and the transition to an integrated CSAT, the standard scores for natural sciences have risen, while those for humanities have somewhat decreased, making it difficult to use previous years’ data when planning regular admission strategies. It is necessary to check the cumulative distribution of scores and devise application strategies accordingly."

Woo Yeon-cheol, head of the Admissions Strategy Research Institute at Jinhaksa, said, "It is tight to prepare for regular admissions after finalizing regular admission applications. Since last year’s converted scores cannot be assumed to be the same as this year’s, it is better to estimate based on percentiles rather than converted scores, carefully review the admission guidelines of universities of interest, and find universities that reflect scores in a way favorable to the applicant by examining the weighting and reflection methods of each CSAT subject."

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