As the deadline for early college applications approaches in about three weeks, a survey reveals that nine out of ten students have not finalized all six application choices.
On August 19, the college admissions information platform JinHakSa released the results of an online survey conducted with 743 students planning to apply for the 2027 academic year. The survey was conducted from August 6 to 17.
According to JinHakSa, only 9.0% of respondents reported that they had finalized all six applications. The remaining 91.0% have yet to complete their choices.
Breaking down the decision status, 40.2% of students indicated they had decided on two to three applications, while 37.6% had settled on four to five. Additionally, 10.1% had not made any decisions, and 3.1% had finalized just one application.
Notably, when combining the responses of those who decided on two to three applications, one application, or none at all, it shows that 53.4% of the surveyed students have finalized three or fewer of their six applications.
When asked about the reasons for not finalizing their application choices, 38.5% of the 676 students who had not completed their selections cited uncertainty about how to structure their applications across ambitious, appropriate, and safe options.
This was followed by 25.7% who found it difficult to assess which universities they could apply to based on their grades, and 25.6% who planned to make decisions after taking the September mock exam.
Other reasons included wanting to finalize decisions after consulting with schools or academies (7.4%), difficulty in making judgments due to incomplete student records (2.1%), and other reasons (0.7%).
Yoo Won-cheol, head of JinHakSa's admissions strategy research center, noted, "The more options students have, the harder it can be to finalize the last six applications. It is now essential to categorize potential universities into ambitious, appropriate, and safe options and prioritize them accordingly."
He added, "When considering safe options, students should not only look at acceptance probabilities but also evaluate whether they genuinely intend to enroll if accepted. Additionally, it is important to check if there are backup options available in case desired outcomes are not achieved in ambitious applications, which can help clarify the role of each application choice."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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