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Having known graduates of both Daewon and KMLA at several elite colleges, I can say that their performance is comparable to most of the other students at their
by antiform 18y ago
Having known graduates of both Daewon and KMLA at several elite colleges, I can say that their performance is comparable to most of the other students at their respective colleges. There are those who continue in their study habits and graduate at the top of the class, those that relax a little to explore their options and enjoy more of their college experience, and those that put more emphasis on socializing than studying. There's no real stereotype of a typical graduate from one of these schools, other than being smart, Korean, and communicating in fluent English. Most of them seem to be happy to be going to college in the U.S.
The craziest thing about most of this is that it takes just as much (if not more) effort for kids in high school to get to one of the top 3 Korean colleges (Seoul, Yonsei, Korea). In fact, both KMLA and Daewon also have a track for students who want to attend Korean universities that is just as intense.
It's hard to say whether this is the best way for a person to spend their high school years, but in places like Korea and Japan, this is the way that any college-bound student spends their youth. Everybody who wants to go to college either attends a college prep school or a private prep program from about middle school, because that's the way it has always been.