▲ 2027 College Admission Forecast Briefing (File Photo)
The number of graduates applying for the September mock evaluation of the 2027 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), scheduled for next month, has exceeded 110,000, marking an all-time high.
The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), the agency overseeing the CSAT, announced that the number of applicants for the September mock evaluation reached 500,128, an increase of 11,785 from the June mock evaluation.
While the number of enrolled high school seniors decreased compared to the September mock evaluation last year, standing at 388,203, the number of graduates and other applicants rose by 6,235 from a year earlier to 111,925.
According to Jongro Academy, this is the highest number of graduates and the highest proportion of graduates recorded since the 2027 academic year September mock evaluation, when KICE first began releasing application statistics starting from the 2011 academic year.
Industry experts analyze that the increase in retakers is driven by the introduction of regional doctor quotas and revisions to the college admissions system.
With the 2028 CSAT eliminating elective subjects in Korean, mathematics, and inquiry, and completely reorganizing the high school internal grading system into a five-grade scale, many graduates view the 2027 CSAT as effectively their last opportunity, according to admissions firms.
In particular, the September mock evaluation showed an extreme surge in the so-called "social studies run" phenomenon, where natural sciences students flock to social studies instead of science studies for the CSAT.
Applicants for social studies reached 432,504, an increase of about 40,000 compared to the September mock evaluation for the 2026 academic year, marking the highest figure since the 2011 academic year.
Conversely, applicants for science studies dropped to 201,060, a decrease from a year ago.
This mock evaluation will be conducted simultaneously at 2,162 high schools and 574 designated test centers nationwide starting at 8:40 a.m. on September 2.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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