Over 80% of early college applicants shaped strategy around 2028 admissions overhaul

More than eight in 10 students applying in the early admissions round for the 2027 academic year said they factored in the upcoming overhaul of the college entrance system when mapping out their application strategy, a new survey shows. Analysts say the results reflect the added pressure on applicants who know that a failed attempt this year would force them to regroup under a fundamentally different set of rules.

College admissions consultancy Jinhaksa said Thursday that 82.7 percent of respondents in an online survey of 3,706 early-round applicants for the 2027 academic year said the 2028 admissions reform had influenced their strategy. The survey was conducted from Sept. 11 to Sept. 18.

Breaking down the responses, 48.9 percent (1,813 respondents) said the reform had a very significant impact, 33.8 percent (1,251) said it had some impact, 11.2 percent said it had little impact, 2.8 percent said it had no impact at all, and 3.3 percent said they were not familiar enough with the changes to judge.

The 2028 admissions cycle will be the first in which students are assessed under a new five-tier school grade system. The College Scholastic Ability Test will also drop elective subjects in Korean, mathematics and the exploratory areas, meaning students who prepared under the current system would need to account for those structural changes when deciding whether to try again.

Among the 3,064 respondents who said the reform had influenced them, the most common response — on a multiple-answer basis — was that they gave greater weight to schools and admission tracks where their chances of acceptance were higher, cited by 58.1 percent (1,779). That was followed by placing greater importance on securing admission through the early round rather than the regular round, at 38.6 percent (1,184), and prioritizing tracks with low or no minimum CSAT score requirements, at 27.1 percent (831).

Jinhaksa said uncertainty about the admissions landscape after the reform was a key factor driving applicants to place greater emphasis on maximizing their chances of acceptance in this year's early round.

Not all applicants who felt the reform's influence opted for safer choices, however. Among those who said the changes had affected them, 20.7 percent (635) said they had aimed higher on at least some of their applications in pursuit of their preferred school. Another 7.1 percent said their approach had not changed in any particular way, while 0.7 percent gave other responses.

Woo Yeon-cheol, head of Jinhaksa's admissions strategy research institute, said the 2028 reform had become a factor that led applicants to think beyond this year's results and consider what would happen if they fell short. "The number of variables to weigh has grown compared to previous years, given that students must look at both their odds of getting in through this year's early round and the changed admissions environment they would face if they tried again," he said.

He added that the reform's influence had not translated uniformly into conservative applications. "It would be more accurate to say it produced different strategies depending on each student's current grades, their competitiveness in the regular round, and their likelihood of reapplying," he said.