Murky law school admission system comes under fire

Criticism has been sparked over the law school admission system after the government’s nationwide survey found clues of nepotism, with the Education Ministry also coming under fire for imposing light punishment against the schools.

The Education Ministry said Monday that it found a total of 24 cases in which law school applicants revealed the occupations or social positions of their parents to allegedly take advantage of it in the admission process. Such information in five cases allowed the admission officials to identify their influential parents or relatives, officials said.

The families of the applicants involved in the five cases were high ranking officials of law firms, law-related organizations or high-ranking public servants, they added. 

The ministry conducted the months-long nationwide survey on law schools since last year to find possibilities of nepotism after a lawmaker was accused of allegedly using his authority to have his son admitted to a law school late last year. The ministry probed some 6,000 cases of the past three years. It was the first-ever probe since the law school system was introduced in 2009.



While Korean law schools have been welcomed as an alternative to widen opportunities to non-law major students and to raise diversity in the field, the admission system operated under schools’ discretion has sparked criticisms over their lack of transparency.

While admission is mostly determined by bar scores, English test scores, personal essays and interviews, the schools are not obligated to disclose how much each criteria is weighed in the admission, allowing leeway for schools to select student based on their preferences, according to critics.

Disallowing applicants from revealing their family background has been considered one of the tools to prevent nepotism in school admissions.

Lawyers were among those that criticized the law schools for lacking admission impartiality.

“The fact that 24 cases were found in the past three years suggests that it is not a small figure. Even one irregularity in the admission process raises suspicion over the impartiality of the system,” said the Korean Bar Association. The association is vocal against the repeal of the bar exam system to be replaced by law schools.

Law professors vowed to take legal measures if necessary.

“The problems of the current law school system are rampant in every step, from the admission process to grading system and graduation process. (The organization) will consider requesting information disclosure to schools or filing a public audit,” said the Korea Law Professors Society.

The ministry, however, said that it could not confirm clear causality between revealing the family background and the admission. The cancellation of the students’ admission is also impossible, citing that it is not appropriate to divert the accountability of schools’ mistakes to the students, it added.

Regardless of the results, the ministry said it will start mandating that schools conduct blind admission processes. Only 18 out of 25 law schools across the country have voluntarily applied strict rules against revealing family background of the applicants. The Education Ministry also gave warnings to schools with lax admission rules.

Public criticism also targeted the Education Ministry over its lack of monitoring and punishment. Some claimed that it has caught irregularities only based on whether the students revealed their family backgrounds in their essays, overlooking irregularities in other areas.

“The ministry’s announcement is only to cover up the irregularities. It is such an incompetent handling with no solutions provided,” claimed KBA.

“Revealing family backgrounds in the opened-competition admission system fundamentally counters the Constitution and public sentiment.”

Some claimed that using family backgrounds in the admission process arouses negative public sentiment in Korea due to its unique culture.

“The Korean traditional collectivism culture has commonly led people to compare with others over their social status and to be interested in others’ social positions. The majority of the public tend to get more sensitive when the minority in power benefits from their privileges in academic background or social power,” said psychology professor Kwak Keum-joo from Seoul National University.



(rene@heraldcorp.com)