Ivy League Admission Newest Fad Among Elite Korean Students

It is 10:30 p.m. and students at the elite Daewon prep school here are cramming in a study hall that ends a 15-hour school day. A window is propped open so the evening chill can keep them awake. One teenager studies standing upright at his desk to keep from dozing.

Kim Hyun-kyung, who has accumulated nearly perfect scores on her SATs, is multitasking to prepare for physics, chemistry and history exams.

"I can't let myself waste even a second," said Ms. Kim, who dreams of attending Harvard, Yale or another brand-name American college. And she has a good shot. This spring, as in previous years, all but a few of the 133 graduates from Daewon Foreign Language High School who applied to selective American universities won admission.

It is a success rate that American parents may well envy, especially now, as many students are swallowing rejection from favorite universities at the close of an insanely selective college application season.

"Going to U.S. universities has become like a huge fad in Korean society, and the Ivy League names -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton -- have really struck a nerve," said Victoria Kim, who attended Daewon and graduated from Harvard last June.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Serfie]

It never ceases to amaze me how these universities will boot qualified Americans who are waiting to get into Ivy League schools in favor of foreigners. They have no shame. Americans love the foreigners, but hate their own.

And Koreans are the most racist people on Earth and hate Americans, so, of course, we let them in.

And then you have these idiots here who think all Americans are stupid and all the Asians are brilliant.

Yeah, if those Asians were so brilliant, we would be sending American children to study at the best Asian universities instead of the other way around.

[cognate]

Move over, Ashkenazim.

[MagisterLudi]

Jews, Chinese or Asian students that are willing to study hard instead of bitching and complaint generally do well and compete on equal basis.Haven't seen many people of your persuasion 'round my campus lately, cognate.
Here's a telling statistic: in the last 30 years only 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic! Any comment on that?

[cognate]

You call yourself master of the game --in Latin no less-- but you have no idea of my persuasion, joker.

[MagisterLudi]

Among educated people ( rather than Wki, Googling kind) Magister Ludi is known as the name of a book by Hesse.
What the matter, no literature course at DeVry?

[loki]

Oh great, now our Ivy League Universities will be sending out the same kind of narcissistic greed driven people as they have in the US corporate and political world. The same education that brainwashes these students into becoming the kind of people who have driven the US into economic, moral, ethical and anti American people in favor of self power and profit , and have totally ruined America as well as our standing in the world. Just what we need. Spreading the seeds of death and destruction around the world through our Ivy League educated death squad. Just think about this. The majority of the people who are leaders in outsourcing, promoting wars , against universal health care, who will do anything and harm anyone just to increase their personal profit and status of power, are from Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale. They promote and take care of others like them self through a good old boys network, and pride themselves on destroying those not like them with Ivy League and elitist backgrounds.
Am I wrong?? God I hope so. I would hate to think a hierarchy of elitist schools has produced so many monsters who are heartless to their own fellow Americans when it comes to a personal profit and status of power. Please, someone prove my theory wrong.. Show me that most of the government officials in DC, as well as most of the decider's in corporate America are not products of Ivy League Education.

[GrandpaMcCain]

Why don't Korean students just get their uncles to get them into Ivy League schools, like Dipsh-t Dubya had to?

[dbdzen]

I don't know why people blame China, NAFTA, free trade and tax loopholes for American job losses. Quite simply here's the deal; fat, lazy, entitled Americans are being outworked by countries that were Third World just two generations ago. If people work harder than you, are smarter than you and ask for less pay too, you're an idiot CEO if you don't move your factory to their country because your competitors will.

Students in China are making some extreme sacrifices for academic progress and national development. The results will be apparent when we compare the median US student and the median Chinese student 20 years from now. Comparing the best from both countries is misleading because America has a well established culture of extreme excellence at the very top.

[MagisterLudi]

between dimwit legacy admissions and the dimwit sport scholarships admissions not much room left for a "normally" bright student these days.