One of the reasons the Ministry of National Defense has cited for integrating the country's military academies is the recruitment of top talent.
Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back also pointed to the issue in a recent command letter, saying that "entrance scores at the military academies keep falling," which he called "evidence that today's academies fail to convince talented candidates they can realize their vision and potential there."
Unlike ordinary universities, the military academies select cadets through their own entrance exam rather than the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). Direct comparisons with regular universities have their limits, but entrance scores at the academies have dropped sharply in recent years. Out of a maximum 300 points across Korean, English and mathematics, scores are known to have fallen to the 160s and 180s.
So how do entrance scores at the Korea Military Academy (Army), the Korea Naval Academy (Navy) and the Korea Air Force Academy (Air Force) actually compare? Even the Air Force Academy, said to be the most preferred of the three, is reported to be on par with the lower-ranked institutions among Seoul's 30 major universities.
According to reporting compiled by the Seoul Economic Daily on the 26th, the Ministry of National Defense analyzed entrance scores at each service academy over the past three years and found them to rank in the order of Air Force, Navy and Army. In particular, when broken down by three measures — top score, average score and lowest score (the cutoff) — the Army academy reportedly came last in all of them.
The Air Force Academy's highest entrance scores were attributed to factors such as the chance for graduates to work at airlines after becoming pilots and leaving the service, despite its less favorable location in Cheongju compared with the Army academy in Seoul.
A defense ministry official said, "The Army academy traditionally had the highest entrance scores, but over the past three years it came last on all three measures — top score, average score and lowest score." The official added, "The Army academy's entrance scores have now fallen below even those of the Naval Academy, which is geographically located in Jinhae."
The Army academy, which trains commanders for the Army — the mainstay of the 500,000-strong armed forces — was in the 1990s on par with top-tier universities in Seoul and had the highest entrance scores among the service academies, followed by the Air Force and Navy academies.
But it has been a long time since entrance scores at the service academies turned downward, as preference for the academies waned and admissions paths diversified. Above all, because the academies hold their own entrance exam, they are said to be viewed by test-takers as a trial-run gateway.
A military official said, "Because the academies hold a separate entrance exam, test-takers often challenge the academy admissions before sitting the CSAT and then give up enrollment if they get into a top-tier university." The official added, "As a result, lower-scoring backup admittees enroll, and entrance scores at the academies keep falling."
A military source said, "The military authorities see selecting top talent as paramount, given that four years of education per academy cadet costs about three times that at a national university and about four times that at a private university." The source added, "To that end, the plan is to establish an integrated national military academy, expand the scale of the academies and create 'a large vessel for cultivating national-class talent.'"
