Six in 10 college applicants skipping CSAT prep — but most end up needing it

About six in 10 students who applied through South Korea's early admissions round are in effect not preparing for the regular admissions round, a new survey shows. However, more than seven in 10 students who ultimately entered the regular round had previously failed early admissions — raising concerns that students who neglect College Scholastic Ability Test preparation could find themselves competing in the regular round without adequate readiness.

College admissions platform Jinhaksa surveyed 1,500 early-admissions applicants for the 2026 academic year on Wednesday and found that 57.3 percent said they were not preparing for the regular round. The largest share — 40.9 percent — said they were "not preparing at all," while 16.5 percent said they were "barely preparing." Another 17.2 percent said their preparation was average, 10.0 percent said they were preparing to some degree, and 15.5 percent said they were preparing very actively.

More than half of early-admissions applicants are focusing on school record management and university-specific exams while effectively ruling out the regular round as an option. Yet students who fail to meet minimum CSAT score requirements or are rejected by their chosen universities may find themselves with no alternative but the regular round.

In practice, more than seven in 10 regular-round applicants had arrived there after failing early admissions. A separate Jinhaksa survey of 1,649 regular-round applicants for the 2026 academic year found that 1,191 of them — 72.2 percent of the total — had also applied in the earlier round.

Jinhaksa said current students who stop studying for the CSAT in pursuit of early admissions alone could end up competing in the regular round against graduates who kept up their CSAT preparation throughout. The platform said students need an admissions strategy that accounts for meeting minimum CSAT score thresholds and the possibility of entering the regular round, rather than taking an optimistic view of their early-admissions prospects.

"When I counsel students on early admissions, quite a few of them overestimate their chances of acceptance and let their CSAT preparation slide," said Woo Yeon-cheol, head of the admissions strategy research institute at Jinhaksa. "In reality, many applicants end up going through both the early and regular rounds."

He added that current students in particular often have no fallback after failing early admissions, making overall admissions failure more likely. "Keep in mind that your CSAT score is the minimum safety net against failing to get into university, and keep studying for it until the very end," he said.