The concentration of first-year high school students at schools with larger student populations has intensified, driven by the new five-tier internal grading system and the high school credit system. Under the five-tier system, only the top 10% of students receive a grade of 1, prompting the view that enrolling at a high school with more students is advantageous in the internal grade competition.
Jongro Academy analyzed the first-year student numbers at 1,700 general high schools nationwide, as disclosed on the School Info portal. According to the results released Wednesday, 107,080 first-year students enrolled at general high schools with 300 or more students this year, up 30.6% (25,063 students) from a year earlier. In contrast, enrollment at general high schools with 200 or fewer students fell 2.3% (5,699 students), from 250,154 last year to 244,455 this year. Given that the total number of first-year general high school students rose 5.8% (19,364 students) year-on-year over the same period, the increase in first-year students enrolling at large general high schools stands out, the analysis noted.
As a result, the number of general high schools with 300 or more first-year students rose by 70, from 236 last year to 306 this year. General high schools with 300 or more students accounted for just 18% of all general high schools nationwide by school count, but they represented 30.5% of first-year general high school students. By first-year student count, 269 schools had students in the 300 range, 35 in the 400 range, and 2 with 500 or more. The schools with 500 or more first-year students were Jeonggwan High School in Busan (525 students) and Cheonan Ssangyong High School (517 students). "With growing preference for large high schools, regions with more students will inevitably produce more students in the top internal grade brackets," said Lim Sung-ho, CEO of Jongro Academy. "In a situation where early admissions make up an overwhelming share, college admission results may also come out higher in these regions."
