Korea University pledges to educate well-rounded student athletes at Korea University-Yonsei University joint press interview
KU plans to introduce a minimum score percentile requirement for prospective student athletes beginning in 2021.

Korea University announced that it will introduce a “minimum score percentile requirement of 70%” for prospective student athletes, beginning in the academic year of 2021.

Korea University (KU) President Jaeho Yeom and Yonsei University (YU) President Yong-Hak Kim held a joint press conference on the revisions to the admission process and subsequent academic affairs for student athletes in Yein Hall of the Sejong Center, Seoul at 9:30 am on Wednesday, April 26.

As outlined in the “Proposal for Improvements to Student Athletes Education” recently issued by the Ministry of Education, both KU and YU agreed to make the revisions as they share the ideal of reviving the essence of college sports reflected in the current system of values and to take the responsibility as higher educational institutions.

They agreed on the following: (1) minimum academic requirements for student athletes, (2) the combination of both athletics and academics, and (3) a strict ban on external interventions from such parties as the alumni and the parents’ association into the athlete groups. The fundamental common ground for the agreement, motivated by the changes in the roles of college sports, is the rising spirit of amateurism and the awareness that student athletes are, after all, students and thus need to possess basic scholastic abilities. Their target is to expand the opportunities for the students’ social involvement upon graduation by offering a better educational environment in which they can develop into leading, autonomous athletes and educators in sports.
 

Both Yeom and Kim stated that “we share the ideal of amateurism and the awareness that being a student always precedes being a student-athlete, which has been motivated by the changes in the roles of college sports.”

KU and YU plan to count high school GPAs and College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) scores as up to 70% of the entire evaluation processes beginning with the 2021 admission season. Current middle school seniors are expected to be the first ones to whom these new standards will be applied. The exact weights that will be placed on GPAs and CSAT scores are expected to be announced after mutual discussions around the second half of this year. KU President Jaeho Yeom said that “the specific evaluation formula will have to be determined based on the policies of the Ministry of Education,” while YU announced that it aims to double the percentage of high school GPAs in the applicant evaluation process currently weighted at 10%, and to increase it even more eventually.

The institutes also aim to develop a strict education scheme that enables future student-athletes to chase two goals at once: academic and sporting performances. Student-athletes will not be allowed to play in the name of their schools if they fail to meet certain academic requirements, and the general rule that students who are placed on academic probation three times will be expelled will be no exception to student-athletes.
 
KU and YU are also discussing the expansion of the Ko-Yon Games, which have been held annually since 1965, to include events other than the current five sports games. The additional events are expected to involve all students in cultural, artistic, academic, and amateur sports activities – thereby turning the Ko-Yon Games into a Ko-Yon Festival.