Errors Occurred the Day Before System Crash... Acceptance Pushed Ahead Despite Warning Signs

[Anchor]

With the college early admissions application system crashing right before the deadline last Friday, applications for relief from affected students are being accepted through tomorrow (the 16th). However, it has been confirmed that a similar glitch occurred just a day before the system failure.

Reporter Jo Yoon-ha has more.

[Reporter]

The server glitch at UwayApply, a private agency handling college early admissions applications, occurred at around 5:50 PM last Friday, just 10 minutes before the application deadline.

Everything from access to payments was blocked, prompting the Korean Council for University Education to hastily extend the deadline by one hour.

However, it was found that temporary site access issues had also occurred on Thursday night, the day before.

UwayApply stated, "We were monitoring the situation because of the server glitch on Thursday," adding, "Because the error occurred right before Friday's deadline, there was not enough time to take action."

This effectively means that early warning signs were ignored and not properly addressed.

Uway explained that a new program was installed to obtain Information Security Management System certification, and an error may have occurred during the process of upgrading this program.

Up to about 1,200 test-takers failed to properly submit their applications due to the server outage.

The Ministry of Education has been accepting relief applications for three days starting yesterday.

The targets are test-takers who logged in before the glitch occurred and have records of attempting to save applications or make payments during the outage period.

The problem is that some universities revealed their competition rates after 6:00 PM, the originally scheduled deadline.

As a result, some applicants may have submitted their applications during the extended deadline after checking the competition rates.

[High School Senior Test-Taker: If students who applied after the early admissions period later on affect my competition rate, I think that would be a huge blow....]

[Test-Taker's Parent: I think it's an insult to the diligent kids who submitted on time. The ones who procrastinated until the very end are actually benefiting more now, and I question whether this is truly fair.]

Test-takers who originally intended to apply close to the deadline but could not access the site were excluded from this relief effort.

It was revealed that some applicants who had not logged in prior to the error period submitted their applications during the extended deadline after the server was restored.

In the past, universities handled applications themselves, but private agencies have been taking over the process since 1997. The Ministry of Education stated that it will comprehensively inspect the application agency system and devise improvement measures.

(Video Journalist: Lee Chan-su, Video Editor: Park Na-young, VJ: Shin So-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.