Gruber's, Princeton Review, Barrons, REA... the list is endless
Really, the first thing I thought when I finished both articles is: “What is happening?!” Integrity and some sense of guilt have flown out the window, and hagwons have become Korean students’ first home. I have heard from boarding school friends shipped off to New Jersey SAT hagwons for Thanksgiving. I was used to seeing pictures of SIS alumni (Class of 2007, 2008) partying and enjoying their time on holidays that when I first read the Hagwon article, it brought me back into perspective.
I think “Hagwon in U.S. Cash in on Korean Undergrads” really discusses what should’ve been in the “44% of Korean Ivy League Students Quit” article. As vague as the standards were for Dr. Kim’s statistics, the reason why almost half of the Korean Ivy League Students dropped out was not very convincing and specific.
Kim said in the thesis that such a high dropout rate is largely attributable to Korean parents forcing their children to study rather than participate in extracurricular activities, an essential part of overseas education for foreign students to acclimate themselves to American society and get a good job in the long run.
Ready for the game?
I guess immersing in school spirit and attending sports events are a huge chunk of college life. However, considering how they are academically driven, extracurricular wouldn’t have been a huge factor in their decisions. Rather, academic rigor and expectations for high grades (and not getting their A’s) would’ve determined this radical decision to drop out of college. It is a disgrace, for both the family and the individual, if he/she quits college in the States as U.S. education is a hot topic among gossiping mothers and news really spreads fast. I’ve seen college students come back to Korea for awhile as exchange students to Korean universities, and numerous rumors spread about him/her that you hear some ridiculous stories. My point is, that these students put so much at risk to drop out. We can really imagine what they are going through, and they can’t go through it by themselves.
I’ve always been skeptical of students who resort to hagwon too much. But now that I think of it, they just don’t know how to study by themselves. I don’t think you learn anything at hagwon, especially at SAT hagwon. They say they teach you skills, but those skills never worked for me. In fact, they messed up my June exam so miserably that I went back to doing it my way. On the flip side, going to hagwon for some help on things you really can’t understand by yourself is the way Koreans should take advantage of hagwon. There is nothing wrong with that because it is only getting some extra help, not learning or pre-learning(?) material that you should learn at school.
Class of 2013! 
Friday was a big surprise for me. Wow- Columbia. Honestly, right when I saw the decision, I realized that SATs didn’t mean as much as I thought. No, I am not one of those uber-exclusive 2250-2400ers (as College Confidential members, ”CC’s,” like to call themselves). I am a bad test taker, and I read very slowly because I eye each word with much care. Since long ago, I knew SATs weren’t my thing. My SAT II’s were very successful because it was relevant to our school material, and I studied hard in school. As for memorizing thousands and thousands of SAT vocabs, I am proud that I made at least a hundred of them mine. Well, the downside is that I couldn’t get through the entire Word Smart I and II in time. I’d say, quality over quantity.
Wow, all I can see are those bolded blue 800's.
As my mother put it, I proved that SATs were just numbers and did not make the rest of my efforts go to waste. All the Korean hagwons persuade parents that 2400 is a must for an Ivy Leaguer, and I, too, at some point, thought that if I didn’t get 2250+, I shouldn’t even apply to my dream school. Yesterday, I was talking to a senior from last year, and he told me that at about nine admissions officers review individuals’ applications, and that it wasn’t sheer luck I got in. I believe him because there are so many factors to admissions that students should be so burdened by SATs.
Now that I actually got into the college of my dream, I am starting to worry about college life, itself. I thought all problems would be resolved if I finish my apps (I still had 6 ish to go). As writing essays is my weakest point, I’ll have to work on it during the second semester. Honestly, through the application process, I improved a lot at letting myself out, and allowing all the rules and grammars to fly out the window because they were holding me back. I had to reread a sentence, delete it, rewrite and continue this, that writing was such a torture. I wanted to be a perfectionist and get it right the first time. But I knew that was impossible. Now, even writing blog posts is a lot easier because I can go back later and make all the corrections. And, I will read LOTS and LOTS of books this coming semesters, as I am less anxious about school grades, and don’t have any apps to worry about. The next half of the year would be a time for self-improvement!
