Korean Universities Release Self-evaluation Results

Universities yesterday released their self-evaluations on a Web site (www.academyinfo.go.kr) providing guidelines for college admission. They struggled to promote their strengths but users said they faced difficulty comparing each university’s self-evaluation data.

Seoul National University said, “We pursue balanced growth in management, education, research, support for students and globalization.” On research activities, the school said it has published 68 articles in prestigious academic journals such as Nature and Science since 2003, adding it thoroughly analyzed research activities while taking both quantitative and qualitative aspects into account.

Korea University said, “Our graduates had the highest employment rate of 77.3 percent, higher than those of our rivals. We are also more generous in granting scholarships than other universities.” To evaluate education (20 points), research (70 points) and globalization (10 points), the school considered 12 colleges and three divisions.

Yonsei University said it gave itself an "excellent" grade (80 points or higher) in educational services, globalization, research, reform, reputation and stabilized financial footing, all of which are included in growth strategies. Notably, Yonsei released the level of its improvement on a year-on-year basis.

The university said its level of improvement is 84.56 points, far higher than 72.57 of other universities at home and abroad.

SungKyunKwan University said, “We have achieved our properly set research goals despite the challenging educational environment.” The university said it has almost achieved its initial goals in research capability and that its achievements have surpassed its initial goals in education, satisfaction and financial status.

Hanyang University said, “We boast an extremely higher number of patents per full-time professor, a notably outstanding level of licensing fee per full-time professor, and high globalization performance.” It said it is different from other universities and has set up a specialized plan fit for global trends.

Ewha Womans University also released eye-catching self-evaluation results. “We ranks high in the number of students per professor, the number of professors, efforts to improve lectures, scholarship and educational cost per student, the amount of money spent on purchasing books per student, and dropout rate,” it said.

Kyung Hee University said, “We provides a quality education. For example, course evaluation is overall outstanding and level of student satisfaction is high.”

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