Q & A with students attending Seoul's National University (SNU)

[mattemate.livejournal.com]

"Seoul's National University is South Korea's top university. In South Korea's society where one's education is an extremely important factor, attending SNU earns one the title as a student of the 'best national university'".

Source: solfa

thought this was pretty interesting so i figured i'd share it! do any of you guys attend top universities or ivy league schools? if you do, do you think people treat you any different?

Comments

[mamamoos.livejournal.com]

that was interesting! i feel kinda bad about myself when i see stuff like this though haha

i went to one of the best secondary schools in the uk but ended up dropping out to homeschool because of depression - not because of school itself but i was bottom of the pile grades-wise too. i always talked about going to oxbridge when i was younger bc it was just the path i was on and our school hammered into us that going to a good uni was everything and really tied in academics and self-worth etc etc

now years later i'm much happier but will probably end up going to a very mediocre uni as i still have a lot of personal problems and just don't have the capacity to get those A*s any more. and while i'll take happiness over anything else and love studying because i'm passionate about learning rather than for grades, i do still get that pang when i see this that my schooling must've instilled in me. and it's hard when my fb is full of people going to the best unis. but my best friend just started at cambridge and hasn't met a single person she liked so far lol she says they're all super elitist rich kids

[wonhoe.livejournal.com]

(i hope this isn't weird...) i experienced a very similar experience! (actually almost completely accurate). i'm 22 now and still not in school because personal problems but i totally agree with you! happiness is top priority but it's hard seeing people you know succeed so well when you could have if not for a few problems along the way... things always work out but it's so irritating sometimes to think about what could have been.

[mamamoos.livejournal.com]

not weird! i post long comments hoping ppl will identify and respond ^__^ that's exactly how i feel. would i be at a top uni now if i weren't mentally ill? but, i am, and that person isn't the person i am now. it's surprisingly hard to let go of that. at the same time, at this point, i feel so happy for every little progression i make. i'm studying because it's something i love, anyway, not because it's the expectation. i hope things look up for you!

[honeyfunnybunny.livejournal.com]

I really liked this, thanks for sharing op!

We don't have ivy league schools or top universities here, but there are programs that are meant for "elite" students. Tbh with the way the education system is set up here, it is honestly just a lot of silent hard work lol
No one really knows, or treat you differently.. From personal experience of doing these programs, you just silently persevere and see some benefits when they calculate your gpa, and that's it. Not that I'm complaining though! We do it cause we want more challenges, not to brag. It's nice to be challenged and rewarded for putting in more effort.

[sheisagentleman.livejournal.com]

where are you from? i'm curious!

[honeyfunnybunny.livejournal.com]

I'm from Denmark :)

[cococrazies.livejournal.com]

Isn't Copenhagen Business School considered a top university, though? I'm pretty curious, considering how Stockholm School of Economics would is seen as such here, but CBS tops SSE in international business school rankings and connections.

[honeyfunnybunny.livejournal.com]

Hmm, tbh I don't get the impression that people consider them a top university here.. mainly cause these rankings only reflect certain/very few majors, but don't reflect the actual university. But they do have a good reputation, yes, and they're the first ones people think of when you mention business..

[cococrazies.livejournal.com]

That's pretty interesting. The ones considered top universities here are Karolinska Institutet (mainly for their med school) and SSE, but despite the fact that the rankings only reflect selected majors, people tend to treat students from those places differently or make assumptions about what kind of person they are just based on that. (Well, even more so for SSE, which has a bit of an elitist/snob reputation.) I always assumed it was the same for our neighbors :P

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

same here in my country. we do have some ivy league unis here but nobody treats you differently when you attend one of these.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

This was pretty interesting. That one girl is adorable but her foundation....pretty cool that she took Arabic.
I attend my country's top university and it definitely comes with a stereotype attached lol. I remember at my orientation they showed that 70K students had applied to the uni that year and only 2k were accepted and I remember thinking, which poor sod's spot did I steal? I have some brilliant classmates and I just end up feeling really average in comparison so it's weird when people make a fuss over me attending it because I feel really...not special lol. But what it is nice that having that University;s name attached to you is pretty much an automatic job guarantee in the future. And it also raises your value in the marriage market pfft.

[sheisagentleman.livejournal.com]

idt in mexico we have 'ivy league' unis considering we are truly shit at education lmao but the equivalent would be, i guess, private unis? i go to one (i dropped from my top choice after the first year because the tuition was too much and they barely gave financial aid)

i dont think people see you as 'smart' (if you go to the mexican equivalent lmao) they see you as rich omg and a fresa (mexican equivalent of upper middle class valley girl)

i always went to private schools and i rmb once on my first job, my boss asked me where i learned english, i said 'school' and a workmate (newbie too) went 'oh of course you did. you went to a private high school' and i was embarrassed tbh it was weird :-|

[angela-derp-otp.livejournal.com]

I would consider places like UNAM and El Politecnico kind of "Ivy leagues", or at least the Mexican equivalent even though they are public (kind of like UCLA in the states), And of course ITESM.

I think the US is like mexico in that way.80% Ivy leagues son para fresas al menos que seas uno de esos hardworkers que van por becas y asi lol. Or maybe is the public uni graduate in me that thinks that way, idk lol.

[soyunatetera.livejournal.com]

UNAM is one of the top universities in Latin America, and if you like world rankings, they do well in those too, do I would think Mexico foes have a top university, maybe not like Ivy leages in the US, porque al final ese tipo de clasificaciones de elite más me suenan a la realidad gringa y por lo mismo hacer paralelos con universidades en otros países le quita un poco las particularidades qie el sistema universitario de cada país pueda tener, pero aún considerando eso, en mi opinión deberías considerar a la UNAM dentro de las mejores universidades en general.
Sorry for changing languages, sometimes I get tired of english

[annayism.livejournal.com]

i just graduated from an ivy league school. some people are so ott about it lmao i met a girl this summer while volunteering and literally the first thing she said to me after discovering the fact was "omg i love talking to smart people!!" ugh i hated it. usually i refrain from even saying which school i went to unless people ask.

i'm going to start working soon and i'm definitely not excited about how people are going to be judging me. like i met my fair share of self-righteous douchebags in school but i can say that most ivy league students/other top league students are just normal, kind, grounded people who don't want to be seen as some kind of "rare national monument" like the girl in the video said!

[angela-derp-otp.livejournal.com]

This was pretty interesting thanks for sharing op!

I didn't went to an Ivy League, my dad did though but his fam was rich af when he was young.
I went public like my mom, UCLA for my degree and got my master from NYU.
I am pretty proud of my education even though is not ivy league \o/

When I was living in Korea I took some classes in SKKU, and I remember this korean girl who was my conversation buddy once told me that her whole family were SNU graduates and she was the only one who didn't get in. Her dad didn't speak to her for a whole year. I was like wtf that's awful, but she was like "I get him I would have done the same", and all I could think was that is such a fucked up way of thinking. :/

[iskerplunk.livejournal.com]

aw but nyu is awesome! i was looking at NY schools for an mfa in creative writing, columbia is shit compared to nyu so at least i can tell you that much.

[junhyosungs.livejournal.com]

i'm applying for colleges right now so i looked at snu for the hell of it and i read this thread where this guy had a 4.3 gpa and 2170 sat score and still didnt get accepted into their intl program.... i gtg
almost done w apps tho!!! november 1st and this hell ends

[doseh.livejournal.com]

I can totally relate to this video as I graduated from the 'best national university' here in my country.

The perks of studying and/or graduating from these kinds of school are definitely advantageous and beneficial but the corresponding expectations and stigmas that come along with it are really hard too.

People think that since you go/went to that university, then you are good at everything; you know everything.

They forget that these students are human too.

[weijiji.livejournal.com]

all of my cousins on my mom's side went to ivy leagues or a really good university, so it was kind of "expected" for me to follow in their footsteps. while i didn't get into any ivy leagues, i did get into uc irvine & uc santa barbara, but i opted out and decided to go to a community college because 1) it was loads cheaper (i don't qualify for financial aid ;n;), and 2) i wasn't really feeling school, so i didn't want to waste time and money for a ridiculously expensive education. my mom was pretty upset with me and refused to bring me to family gatherings for a while, but i think it was to protect me because my aunts, uncles, and cousins said some pretty nasty things about me for being the "dumb one" of the family lmaaao.

but honestly, yeah, i do think getting into college is really based on luck? i have a few friends that did pretty well during their high school years only to be beat out by people who just.. did not do well in high school.

[tomatomc.livejournal.com]

i did attend one of the top universities in my county and one thing i realized was that i was actually a pretty average student. going from a top student at secondary school to an average student at university did catch me off guard lmao.

and as for the treatment nothing really change but it did give my parents a bit of a bragging right.

[chibi-rei.livejournal.com]

Nice

But omg I watched the "foreign teacher" video YT suggested after and it's 100% goddamn truth omg lol.
As a woman though I wish they had interviewed a couple women, but seriously from personal experience it's all true.

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

huh why did i miss this post, this is pretty interesting. i love hearing about other countries education systems.

tbh, its kinda funny that koreans think so highly of SNU (or SKY in general) when these unis dont even belong to the best of the world. according to the recent times higher education ranking, SNU is @72 and KAIST @89, the others are all outside the top100. yet they act like everybody that goes to these unis is some kind of genius. i get that they're proud of their universities but they shouldn't put so much pressure on the students. its not the end of the world when you dont get into a SKY uni.

thank god i live in a country where it doesnt matter which uni you graduate from.

[mattemate.livejournal.com]

what country do you live in if you don't mind me asking? same as you i think it's super interesting to see how other countries' education systems work (and how society in general works)

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

good old germany
i sometimes spent hours reading about different education systems, i even did a presentation in uni about chinas education system and their college entrance exam.

[mattemate.livejournal.com]

oh nice. i remember really wanting to study in germany for college, but i'm still at an intermediate level as far as my german speaking abilities go. doesn't china have a ridiculously hard college entrance exam? or am i confusing them with another country

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

they do. its called gaokao. kinda similiar to the korean college entrance exam.