The Grading System in Korean High Schools
Until 2005, Korean high schools used the Su, Wu, Mi, Yang, Ga system utilizing a raw score scale of 0-100 as follows;
|
Raw score |
|
|
90-100 |
Su |
|
80-89 |
Wu |
|
70-79 |
Mi |
|
60-69 |
Yang |
|
59 or below |
Ga |
In this absolute system for evaluation, 100% of total students can fall into ‘Su’ or 0% can fall into ‘Su,’ depending on the actual distribution of raw scores.
From 2005, the evaluation system was changed to a grading system utilizing 9 levels or ranks. There is a level indicated in each subject. In the transcript, you might see students’ achievement in the following form or something very similar.
|
Spring Semester |
|||
|
Subject |
Unit |
Raw Score/Average Score (SD) |
Level(Enrollment) |
|
English |
3 |
95/70 (10) |
1 (532) |
|
Math |
3 |
85/73 (11) |
3 (532) |
Units: credit units or credit hours per week.
Score: raw score of the student on a scale of 0-100.
Average: school wide average score of the subject in the given semester.
SD: Standard Deviation.
Rank: student’s level of standing on a scale of 1 to 9: with 1, the highest and 9 the lowest.
Enrollment: total number of students who completed the subject/course in the given semester
The percentage of students in each level may be presented as follows;
|
Level |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
|
% |
4 |
7 |
12 |
17 |
20 |
17 |
12 |
7 |
4 |
This new system uses a relative evaluation where we can find a student’s achievement compared to other students within the school. While this ranking system helps to compare a students standing with others within the same school, we should keep in mind that there are some schools which enroll only the top 5-10% of Korea’s best students. Students in those top schools with levels of 8 or 9 can be better than students from other schools with levels of 1 or 2. In fact, to ensure a better evaluation of their high school records, some students in top-ranked high schools actually drop out of school and take Korean GED.