Entrance exam wars: A pressure cooker for South Korean youth

It’s midnight in Seoul. A high school student is hunched over textbooks, tired but determined as they prepare for what South Koreans call a “life-defining moment” — the national college entrance exam, or Suneung.

Administered just once a year, this test will determine which university doors will open or remain forever closed for the student, charting their job choices, income and entire future trajectory.

The Suneung is not merely an academic assessment but a societal ritual during which the whole country mobilizes in support of test-takers. On exam day, companies stagger work schedules, construction crews fall silent and even aircraft obey restricted flight paths — all to create the optimal conditions for students facing their scholastic reckoning.

Academic credentialism is woven into the very fabric of South Korea’s postwar economic success, driven by family-owned conglomerates, or chaebol, that have historically leveraged a highly educated workforce to reach market dominance. Samsung and Hyundai come to mind.

These companies continue to recruit from elite universities and in the context of increased economic competition since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the value of prestigious educational credentials has intensified.

In fact, new graduates entering major corporations earn starting salaries 1.52 times higher than their counterparts at smaller companies — a disparity that dwarfs Japan’s 1.13 ratio — according to the Tokyo-based NLI Research Institute. The South Korean labor market defies the principle of equal pay for equal work, with a wage chasm that is both cause and consequence of the relentless pursuit of academic success.

The impact of this system is increasingly dire, casting a shadow not only on future workers, but their childhoods too. A growing majority — 87% — of South Korean children and teenagers report being unhappy, primarily due to lack of sleep and excessive time spent studying, according to a 2023 survey by the nonprofit ChildFund Korea.

Student suicides reached 214 in 2023, the highest level ever recorded and more than double that of eight years prior, as reported in The Korea Times. While mental health issues, family problems and interpersonal conflicts all contributed to this tragic tally, academic pressure was the leading factor behind 35 cases.

“South Korea is a country that does not give second chances,” putting huge pressure on its youth, says Ok Jiwon, a member of the government's Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy.

The university entrance exam is a foundational part of this hierarchical system, where attendance at a top institution, especially one of the "SKY" colleges — Seoul National, Korea and Yonsei Universities — becomes the ultimate arbiter of professional prospects, and even marital opportunities and social standing.

While the privileges of graduating from an elite institution are by no means exclusive to South Korea, here, the struggle for these limited spots has evolved into a high-stakes gamble. Families invest extraordinary resources in private education such as cram schools — attended by almost 80% of students — with some willing to lavish up to 4 million South Korean won (around $2,700) a month, says the CEO of South Korea’s oldest cram school, quoted by The Korea Herald.

This environment has spawned what is known as the "N-po generation," where "N" symbolizes an indefinite number and "po" comes from the Korean term for "to give up." This cohort has relinquished aspirations of marriage, children, homeownership and even romantic relationships — viewing these fundamental life experiences as unattainable without first achieving academic and professional perfection.

The fixation on achievement has reduced human beings to a mere list of credentials. Young Koreans routinely employ the term “specs” — borrowed from product specifications — to categorize an individual's university pedigree, physical appearance, corporate affiliation, wealth, etc. Rather than seeing others for their intrinsic worth, people are conceptualized as walking resumes whose value derives primarily from their academic lineage.

This linguistic dehumanization reflects a society that, in its obsession with productivity and achievement, has sacrificed empathy toward those who prioritize other choices — such as starting a family — over career advancement. As social interactions have grown increasingly caustic, the derogatory term “mom-roach” (mam-chung) — a portmanteau of “mom” and “cockroach” — has emerged to stigmatize mothers who dare bring children into public venues like cafes or restaurants.

The South Korean government has made several attempts to alleviate the weight of academic pressure on young people’s shoulders, but these interventions have largely backfired. For example, when authorities prohibited cram schools from operating after 10 p.m., parents simply redirected children to sports lessons not covered by the restrictions, explains Kim Kyung-chu in “Excessive Capitalism: The Agony of an ‘Infinitely Competitive Society’” (title translated from Japanese).

The government has also encouraged companies to adopt “blind” recruitment practices, with mixed results. And Ok points to the fundamental contradiction in this practice: “Is it fair that you can't write the name of the university you worked so hard to get into on your resume?”

While South Korean students can transfer between universities, unlike in Japan, Lee Hyowon, member of the Seoul Metropolitan Council’s education committee, explains that many opt to retake entrance exams altogether rather than transfer, seeking to expunge their previous college from their record entirely.

Paradoxically, government initiatives have actually intensified academic credentialism, according to Kim, because parents have grown more fixated on educational attainment amid frequent policy shifts. Specs have become the sole reliable path to job security.

Given an excessive focus on academic performance, what happens when children are not given sufficient space and time to cultivate human relationships? I believe this deficit could be contributing not only to South Korea’s student suicides and even increasing rates of school violence, but to the country’s abysmal fertility rate, the lowest in the world, which bottomed out at 0.72 in 2023 — significantly below even Japan's then-record low of 1.20.

The absence of opportunities to develop interpersonal skills makes young people ill-equipped to form intimate relationships. Indeed, a 2022 survey by the Korea Population and Health Welfare Association revealed that over 65% of young adults aged 19 to 34 weren’t dating at all. Lee adds that parents who experienced the 1997 market collapse tend to fuel the expectation that relationships stem from having a stable income, “but this is unrealistic because when we are younger, it is natural to have an unestablished career.”

This generational trauma has further contributed to an escalating cycle of pressure on young people to secure their futures through academic achievement against increasingly formidable odds, including an unemployment rate for new college graduates of around 30%.

In Japan, which shares a culture of academic credentialism, the idea of specs is also employed as a metric for evaluating personal worth and the term komochi-sama, “people with kids,” is used as a sarcastic honorific portraying parents as entitled — mirroring South Korea’s mom-roach. This overlap hints at the common challenges the two countries face as societies viewed as hostile to form a family in.

Breaking this cycle demands more than just government intervention. South Korea (and Japan) should reconceptualize success beyond the narrow confines of academic and hence professional attainment. For example, employers can reform workstyles and recruitment practices. In Ok’s views, this means breaking away from the seniority system and addressing the fact that “the wages of young people right now are too low given how highly educated young Koreans are.”

As South Korea's birth rate plummets and young people’s mental health deteriorates, the pressure cooker of academic credentialism endangers not just individual well-being but the nation's future. The solution may lie in reimagining success itself — transitioning from a “one-shot society” to one that honors diverse pathways and second (even third) chances, reclaiming the human dignity that has been sacrificed on the altar of achievement.

Until then, another midnight descends on Seoul. Another student turns the page, driven by the knowledge that in South Korea's unforgiving system, there are no do-overs.