Police University over Yonsei or Korea U? Competition ratio hits 91.6-to-1 despite fewer perks

"I would rather apply to the National Police University than settle for a low-ranked department at Yonsei or Korea University. And if I change my mind later, I can go to law school."

Those are the words of a student who applied to the National Police University this year. With a stable career path as a police officer, tuition support, and the possibility of attending law school afterward, the university is an attractive option, the student said.

The competition ratio has climbed again — to 91.6 to 1. A total of 4,582 students applied for 50 spots in the 2027 freshman class, up 238 applicants from last year's ratio of 86.9 to 1. Excluding the 2025 admissions cycle — when the university's first-round exam was scheduled separately from those of the military academies and the ratio surged to 175.2 to 1 — this year's figure is the highest in the past five years.

The nature of that competition, however, has changed. Military service benefits have been eliminated and the university's once-distinctive appeal has faded. A program that allowed male graduates to fulfill their mandatory military service by working in auxiliary police units was abolished starting with the 2019 freshman class.

Unlike in the past, when students chose the National Police University with policing as their sole career goal, today's applicants are calculating multiple exit routes after graduation. The pool now includes students committed to a lifetime in law enforcement, high-achieving students who apply alongside top universities as an extra option, and those who already have law school in their sights. The era when there was just one reason to choose the National Police University is over.

One key reason the National Police University attracts high-achieving students is that it falls outside the six-application limit governing regular university early admissions. Woo Yeon-cheol, director of the admissions strategy research institute at Jinhaksa, said some top students apply simply because doing so does not use up one of their regular university slots, adding that it is difficult to link the rising competition ratio directly to an improved image of the police.

That said, applying to the National Police University is not a simple practice run. Its first-round exam covers Korean, English and mathematics but is considered more difficult than the equivalent exams at the military academies. The college entrance exam also accounts for 50 percent of the final selection score.

In the admissions industry, the pool of competitive applicants for the National Police University is now seen as overlapping substantially with those targeting Sogang University, Sungkyunkwan University and Hanyang University, rather than being directly comparable to the top tier of Seoul National University, Yonsei University and Korea University as it once was.

Within the police organization itself, some say the university no longer draws the very top students the way it once did. Students who could have gained admission to Seoul National University or Yonsei and Korea universities once chose the National Police University in significant numbers, but the abolition of military service benefits and rounds of institutional reform have weakened the incentives for the highest-achieving students to apply.

Objective comparisons are difficult, however, since the National Police University does not release the college entrance exam percentile scores of its admitted students or data on how they fared in cross-applications to regular universities.

One factor drawing high-achieving students to the National Police University is the prospect of going on to law school. According to Jongno Hagwon, the number of National Police University graduates admitted to one of the country's 25 law schools rose from 72 in the 2022 admissions cycle to 87 in 2023 and 92 in 2024. The figure dipped to 80 in the 2026 cycle after reaching 91 in 2025, but still accounts for 3.7 percent of total law school entrants.

Lee Sang-hoon, a professor in the police studies department at Daejeon University, wrote in a paper titled "A Study on the Direction of National Police University Reform" that graduation from the National Police University has become "one of the important tracks leading to law school," adding that roughly a third of students begin preparing for law school from their first year.

Some applicants have law careers in mind even before they enroll. One student who had been considering natural science programs at Yonsei University or Korea University switched career goals to the legal field during a gap year and applied to the National Police University instead.

The student said the goal after entering the National Police University was to go on to law school, and that quite a few fellow applicants were also considering the university as a stepping stone to law school. For these students, the National Police University is not just a path into policing — it is a route into the legal profession.

Transfer students, by contrast, tend to have clearer motivations. Among current students and transfer applicants at the National Police University, there is a strong sense that transferring solely to gain access to law school is the wrong approach.

Having already experienced university life elsewhere before sitting another entrance exam to enter as a third-year student, transfer applicants are expected to be genuinely committed to a career in policing. In the 2026 admissions cycle, 1,011 students applied for 25 transfer spots, a competition ratio of 40.4 to 1.

Among transfer students themselves, the prevailing view is that the National Police University is worth recommending if policing is a clear career goal, but that transferring with law school as the sole objective is inadvisable. Unlike freshmen, who weigh multiple options — policing, law and other fields — when choosing the university at the point of high school graduation, transfer students have already left another university to make the switch, reflecting a more defined commitment to policing as a profession.

Even within the same institution, the career outlooks and motivations of freshman and transfer applicants differ markedly. One admissions industry official said not everyone who applies to the National Police University has policing as their only goal — some apply alongside regular universities to keep their options open, while others have post-graduation paths such as law school in mind. The official added that students who transfer to the National Police University after already attending another university have typically given more thought to a career in policing before making that choice, and that the profile of freshman and transfer applicants can differ considerably even within the same admissions process.