[The Editors' Verdict] The Avalanche Triggered by the Surge in Repeat Medical School Applicants

High school seniors preparing for the college entrance exam were reportedly in a state of collective panic during last week's early admission application period for the 2025 academic year, according to heads of counseling offices at private academies in Daechi-dong. This is due to the largest number of repeat test-takers ("N-su students") in 21 years, triggered by the increase in medical school admissions. Since top-tier repeat test-takers are highly likely to dominate the top grades in each subject area of the relative-evaluation College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), current high school seniors find it much more difficult than last year to meet the minimum CSAT grade requirements set by the universities they apply to during early admissions.

The admissions industry estimates that out of 180,000 repeat test-takers, 90,000 are "half-year repeaters" who have already enrolled in university but are retaking the exam. These include female freshmen from regional medical schools in Gangwon-do aiming to transfer to one of the Big 5 medical schools, and male students currently enrolled in top science and engineering programs who have applied to medical schools at their own universities. While these students have the option to succeed or simply return to their current status if unsuccessful, high school seniors taking the exam alongside them face lower subject area grades even with the same CSAT scores compared to last year, and universities that would have accepted them last year based on minimum CSAT requirements may reject them this year.

Admissions experts predict that current high school seniors who fail to meet this year's standards will reappear as repeat test-takers at next year's CSAT. If the accumulation of such repeat test-takers continues year after year, the college admissions system will become distorted, turning prestigious universities into schools that are only accessible through multiple attempts, whether medical schools or not. The economic consequence will be a decrease in youth labor force as the age at which college graduates begin economic activities rises.

In the medical field, there are concerns that the dominance of repeat test-takers in medical schools will distort the physician training system in the long term. Already, 54% of all medical school freshmen this year are repeat test-takers (according to Ministry of Education data). Within a few years from this admissions cycle, medical schools will effectively become departments that current high school seniors cannot enter. The medical sector foresees a worsening shortage of essential medical personnel as the age at which doctors begin clinical practice increases. There is precedent for this.

The medical community expects that next year's freshmen will submit leave of absence requests citing "insufficient educational environment due to increased admissions." Due to hierarchical dynamics within the apprentice-like groups, juniors will have no choice but to yield so that the class of 2024, who took leave this year, can attend normal classes. Among repeat test-takers, there is also a spreading sentiment to choose 18 months of active duty military service during enrollment instead of 38 months as military doctors after graduation.

Older medical students who enter through repeat attempts, take leaves of absence, and complete military service will have a reduced total clinical workload over their lifetime until retirement after obtaining their medical licenses. Physicians who calculate their career paths tend to gravitate toward high-revenue specialties rather than low-reimbursement essential medical fields. Graduates of medical professional graduate schools (의학전문대학원, UME) who started medical studies after university graduation are examples. The decisive reason for abolishing UME was that older novice doctors focused on popular non-reimbursed specialties, saying "I need to earn before I get old." The original goal of UME to produce physician-scientists and basic medical researchers was never realized.

Medical school professors foresee that if medical school graduates age due to the above process, the side effects of the money-driven UME system will reoccur. This could cause the government's goal of expanding essential and regional medical care through increasing medical school admissions to collapse without even building a sandcastle.

Whether by readjusting medical school quotas, improving CSAT evaluation methods, or, in extreme cases, imposing handicaps on half-year repeaters, the issues predicted by the surge in repeat test-takers due to increased medical school admissions?namely, the deepening disadvantages for high school seniors and the aging of medical school freshmen?must be resolved before they take root. Allowing a small snowball to roll unchecked will inevitably cause an unstoppable avalanche.