Now, many Koreans are not going to like this article, because it reveals a lot of dirty little secrets that depend on them staying dirty little secrets. And I am also not making sweeping generalizations about ALL Korean students or people; but as someone who has worked directly in the education field on levels that most Korean educators have not, I feel I am qualified to make these observations.
I've worked as a US History instructor in two of what are generally considered the top three elite high schools in Korea that send large amounts of students to the US for foreign study, have similarly lectured in two top-tier universities here, and even taught in normal Korean middle schools in the countryside, which I did for the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship program, which was the only way a foreigner could get into a Korean public school in the mid-1990's. There were 27 of us in the entire country in 1994; now, they are legion.
Moreover, I have done academic work on the Korean alternative education system, and worked in several alternative schools and youth centers teaching photography as the reason to be there, conducting class and working with the kids completely in Korean. In short, the depth and range of my experience as an educator in Korea is at least, if not deeper, than that of a Korean national.
That being said, I have never in my life seen nor heard of the level of unethical practices on the scale that I observed in Korean schools. Now, the question of corruption is a tricky one, and brings in the question of cultural relativity and not directly comparing for the sake of doing so, so I'll leave the question of Korean "ethics" and their cultural context out of this critical essay.
However, as it has to do with fairness vis a vis the American students in the application pool, a criticism is only fair. In general, top American students completing applications to attend top American universities generally complete their own application essays – with some heavy help and editing oversight, surely, but they are fairly representative of the students' work – and that's without even getting to the fact that teachers' recommendations are what they appear to be, and aren't bought, nor are they written by the student him or herself.
Maloberti cited the downside to the over-emphasis on study and competition among Korean students and families. “Squeeze a kid too hard and he’ll cheat.” There were 15 instances where Korean test score authenticity was questioned last year, as compared to only 11 instances out of the 55,000 U.S./Canadian test takers. On a grander scale, the Korean Education Ministry threw out over 300 students involved in organized cheating on the national college entrance exam (Harold Tribune, March 30, 2005, “Education Ministry goes after Cheaters”, The Korea Times, March 29, 2005, “Test Scores for 226 Suspected Cheaters Invalidated”).
Intense memorization of writing sample responses, interview question responses, and hundreds of vocabulary words misrepresents language fluency allowing a student to potentially test in the 90th percentile in language and, in reality, have only a 19% ability to speak and understand English. Moreover, the custom of paying Korean teachers to write recommendations for students is not considered corrupt, allowing for the possibility of teachers exaggerating student strengths in English fluency. (source here)
In a society that values results over process, names over quality, and getting as much reward as possible at any cost, that applied to the pretty fair American system is veritably scary. Yes, the American system has its flaws, but even the most obvious favoritism or prioritizing – legacy admissions, affirmative action, special talents – are well-known, transparent, and open for public debate.
Many Koreans I talk to absolutely don't believe me when I say that money in white envelopes doesn't change hands in the American system. Is there corruption in American government, politics, or society? Sure. But as it relates to education, even the nepotism and unfairness is relatively open and rare.
Daddy builds a building the year Muffy applies to college? Well, yeah, she's in. But most schools' legacy admissions are actually factored into the formula, most admissions offices state the extent to which they are "needs-blind," and whatever other occasional problem cases pop up surely don't involve a white envelope filled with $500 in cash.
But in Korea, this is common enough that people actually think this is commonplace in the rest of the world. And from observing what happens in Korean schools, from listening to my students, and from getting into raging clashes with administrators as I refuse to be cooperate with such corruption directly, I know it is commonplace. I have seen incident after incident with my own eyes, yet I can't describe them in detail lest I be subject to the overly-aggressive libel laws that prevent the best muckraking in this society. If truth were a recognized defense against libel suits...wow.
Originally designed as an office building with four floors, Lee Joon, the future chairman of the building, redesigned the building as a large department store later on during its construction. This involved cutting away a number of support columns in order to permit the installation of escalators. When the initial contractors refused to carry out these changes, Lee fired them and hired his own building company to construct the building...Later on, a fifth floor was added to the four-floor building, which was first planned to be a skating rink; the skating rink was added due to regulations that stopped the whole building from being used as a department store. Lee changed the original plan for the fifth floor to include eight restaurants. When a construction company tasked to complete the extension advised that the structure would not support another floor, they were fired, before another company finished the job. (source here)
That quote above sounds eerily familiar, as I found myself searching for another job this past summer for similar reasons.
As a foreign observer familiar with Korean society – or you can listen to Michael Breen's take on it, who is a more venerable and informed figure than myself – I can say that incidents like the Sampoong Department store collapse, exploding gas mains in Taegu, the Seongsu Bridge collapse, the intensely embarrassing Hwang Woo Seok "fake cloning" scandal, or even the fact that right now, Lotteworld, Korea's longest-running amusement park for kids, has been temporarily closed because the structure has been deemed structurally unsound – these are all results of the generally recent social attitude that the ends justify the means, which is why what would be considered "plagiarism" in academic work, "cheating" on tests, or just plain "unethical" practices in the US are really, truly everyday practices here.
Admittedly, Korean society is working through these problems, as recent political scandals over the Education Minister having been accused of plagiarism have sparked public debate over the issue, as have accusation of cheating in top Korean universities, or a slew of mass cheating incidents at the national college entrance exam.
By far the most shocking case of Asian-style academic plagiarism, however, took place last year in South Korea, where the country's last education minister, Song Ja, was forced to quit his job after a citizens' group revealed that an entire book he published, in 1982, was virtually identical to a book written 14 years earlier by two American scholars.
Dr Song, formerly the president of Yonsei University, a prestigious institution in Seoul, originally came to prominence in South Korea for his outspoken views on the need for greater originality of thought in Korean education. In the preface to his 1982 book, which he titled Managerial Accounting Principles, Dr Song acknowledged having been influenced by the writings of other international academics, but, using the standard disclaimer made by writers of original work, he went on to assume authorial responsibility for the book's content. He wrote that he hoped his book would help improve the quality of accounting education in South Korea.
Like most of the recent international cases, though, the South Korean scandal was not without its brighter side. As Kyongsoo Lho, a professor of international politics at Seoul National University, points out, the case involving Dr Song doesn't so much show that plagiarism is on the increase in South Korea, or anywhere else, but that the means to catch such cheaters is so much easier now, thanks, largely, to the ubiquity of the internet. (source here)
But all that goes against the grain of an "education industrial complex" that is so large, powerful, and deeply interested. Michael Seth describes it in detail in his expansive book on the subject, Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea, probably the best, most objective book written on the subject in Korean or English, especially because of the fact he is more of an impassive observer looking in. (Read review here.)
Even I myself find it difficult to write this essay, since I am inextricably tied into a web of job-related concerns as an educator here. It helps pay the bills, which makes it harder to be frank and honest about it; but I would rather keep my dignity and self-respect than an easy lecturing job. And as much as some Koreans may think me evil for daring to write about this subject frankly, without pulling any punches, I think that any honest citizen of this great republic must know, deep in his or her heart, that what I assert here is not a pack of lies or distortions, but far closer to the truth than people want to admit.
To American admissions offices, on both the elite boarding school and university levels, I encourage you to be more stringent in your analysis of Korean students, and make an effort to identify the ones out there who refuse to cheat, who try to represent themselves fairly, who don't have enough money to have a team of American university graduates and teachers essentially complete their application parts for them.
American admissions offices, I would like you to explore ways to sift between the majority of recommendation letters that are written by the students or a "college counselor" rather than actually by the teacher him or herself, translated by a truly disinterested third-party, and mailed in a sealed envelope.
American admissions offices, I would like you to find ways to identify the many Korean students who would be veritable sponges sucking up the glory of a quality, American liberal education and make some of the best students on earth – really, the combination of intense work ethic and robotic education system has made my experience as a history teacher really the best I've ever had, with the most responsive students I've ever known – and separate them from the kids who've had all their work done by tutors, who only understand the mind as a place to cram information, and only see the crown jewels of American education as another notch in the belt of the resume they want to become a "master of the universe" back in Korea.
Given the intense nature of educational competition here in South Korea, you cannot trust a book by even a cursory flip-through of the pages, let alone its cover. Supplementary materials, recommendations, and the application essays are often overtly faked; and even the sparkling test scores and GPA's are more the reflection of intense institutional engineering than true academic learning. Even interviews are often prepped for through the rote memorization of dozens of well-thought responses.
My point is that there are so many Korean students storming the walls of American education, and the stakes so high in South Korean society, that if American admissions officers use the same standards of scrutiny to evaluate prospective Korean students, it will be difficult to discern the true gems from the large amounts of students who don't add up to much more than flash and gilded promises.
As an active member of the overseas alumni community and potential alumni interviewer for both Phillips Andover Academy and Brown University, I plan to do my best to discern the pearls from the pebbles when it comes to whom I decide to send to my schools. The way I see it, no amount of prepping can help fake a real desire to learn and broaden one's mind. I do as it relates to the schools that are part of my personal sphere of concerns, and I would encourage American admissions officers to do the same, as Korean students occupy another #1 slot, that being the status of having the highest number of secondary students studying in the US than any other nation (no citation here, sorry).
American educators – be diligent, be fair, and please try to find the most deserving students, not the most primped and privileged.