Jung Ho-young Denies 'Daughter's Interview Favoritism'... "There Are 4 More Perfect Scorers in 3 Exams"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Jo] On the 18th, Jeong Ho-young, the nominee for Minister of Health and Welfare, issued a clarification statement to refute allegations surrounding his child's medical school transfer admission.

The nomination hearing preparation team for the Minister of Health and Welfare released a press explanation on the 18th, stating that besides Jeong's daughter, there were four other examinees who received perfect scores in the oral evaluation at the third examination room of the 2017 academic year Kyungpook National University Medical School transfer admission. Jeong's daughter received perfect scores (20 points) from all three examiners in the third oral evaluation room. As suspicions arose that these examiners were alumni or research collaborators of Jeong, the controversy over "dad's chance" intensified. According to the "Oral Evaluation Perfect Score Distribution by Examiner" table disclosed by the preparation team, besides Jeong's daughter, students 1 to 3 also received perfect scores of 20 points from all three examiners in the third examination room. A representative from the preparation team said, "In addition to students 1 to 3, there is one more. Among the 99 examinees who took the oral evaluation, there were a total of five perfect scorers in the third examination room." At that time, a total of 33 students were admitted through the Kyungpook National University Medical School transfer admission.

In the 'Q&A' materials distributed at a press conference the previous day, Jeong also disclosed the oral evaluation score sheets of five examinees, including his daughter, showing that only his daughter received a perfect score. The preparation team additionally revealed the perfect score cases in the third examination room on this day. Jeong's daughter scored an average of 17.7 and 17 points in the first and second examination rooms, respectively. The average scores of students 1 to 3 in the first and second examination rooms were 18.3 and 19.7, 19 and 18.6, and 18.3 and 17.3, respectively. The oral evaluation was conducted in three examination rooms, each assessing different subjects. The first room evaluated biology, the second chemistry, and the third reasoning.

The preparation team explained that each evaluation was conducted quantitatively based on how many answers met pre-established criteria. The team emphasized, "Accordingly, the scores given by the three examiners in the same examination room tend to be similar for each student," and added, "It is not unusual for the three examiners to give a perfect score to the nominee's daughter from this perspective." They also stated that perfect scores often occur when all criteria are met and that other examinees also received perfect scores. The team added, "Examiners were randomly assigned on the day of the exam, and a document-free interview evaluation was conducted, making artificial examiner assignment impossible."

The preparation team explained, "The nominee's daughter's perfect score in the oral evaluation was limited to one of the three evaluation areas," and "Her final combined oral evaluation ranking was 19th out of 33 successful candidates, which is not a high score." Compared to her academic ranking (16th) and English score (11th), her oral evaluation ranking was lower. The Kyungpook National University Medical School transfer admission process involved selecting three times the number of candidates in the first stage by combining academic scores (200 points), official English scores (100 points), and document evaluation (200 points), then adding interview evaluation (100 points) and oral evaluation (200 points) in the second stage, for a total of 800 points. However, political circles such as the Democratic Party argue that subjective evaluations like document evaluation, interview, and oral evaluation had greater discriminative power than academic and English scores, suggesting that the nominee's daughter's perfect oral evaluation score, which is under suspicion of preferential treatment, may have influenced the admission outcome. The preparation team claimed that the daughter was ranked 38th and did not initially make the final 33 admitted candidates but was admitted later as a supplementary candidate, stating, "If there had been fraudulent acts significant enough to affect the admission outcome, her score would not have been low enough to fall outside the unpredictable supplementary candidate ranking."

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