KS's Global Insights into Higher Education

As we commence January 2023, it's the season of college admissions in South Korea. The Gaokao, often referred to as the "Chinese CSAT," is a standardized national college entrance examination in China. Introduced in 1952, a good 42 years earlier than South Korea's equivalent, the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), it is known as the largest exam in the world held by a single country, with over 10 million test takers annually. Unsurprisingly, the Gaokao serves as a gateway for Chinese students to enter Chinese universities. But what will happen if Korean universities create a 'Gaokao admission track'? The concept of a nation's university entrance exam transcending its borders and being adopted globally presents an intriguing scenario. The 'one-time filtering' method, which sifts out student eligibility and capacity through standardized tests managed by the government, is prevalently employed in countries where the Confucian tradition of societa...