The Korean Council for University Education (KCUE) and Uway Apply, the vendor that handles college application processing, issued formal apologies over a system failure that struck just before the deadline for early admissions applications for the 2027 academic year. The council said it will verify the records of applicants who were unable to complete their submissions and set up a remedy process, while ensuring that fairness among applicants and the integrity of the admissions process are not compromised.
KCUE President Lee Ki-jung said in a statement on the 14th, "We deeply apologize to applicants and their parents for the confusion, inconvenience and great worry caused by the system failure at Uway Apply." He added, "Our top priority will be to ensure that no applicant suffers unfair disadvantage."
At around 5:50 p.m. on the 11th, roughly 10 minutes before the early admissions deadline, a server error occurred in the Uway Apply system, leaving some applicants unable to complete their submissions normally. Universities that had been set to close applications at 6 p.m. extended their deadline by an hour, to 7 p.m.
The council has obtained records related to the system failure from Uway and is reviewing the status of submissions at the time. Based on that review, it plans to identify applicants who could not complete their submissions because of the failure and then work with the relevant universities to establish a remedy process.
Because granting additional submission opportunities could raise questions of fairness toward applicants who filed on time, the council said it will determine who qualifies for relief based on objective submission records. "We will work with the relevant universities, based on objective facts and verifiable records, to establish a reasonable and fair remedy process," Lee said. "We will look carefully at this to ensure that fairness among applicants and the integrity of the admissions process are not compromised."
The council will also review its application system as a whole in the wake of the incident. It plans to examine the stability of the system's operation and its response framework for outages, and to consult with the Ministry of Education on any institutional and structural improvements needed to prevent a recurrence.
Uway Apply also issued an apology the same day and pledged to prevent a recurrence. "We caused great confusion and inconvenience to applicants who were completing their final submissions ahead of the deadline," said Sung Yoon-seok, chief executive of Uway Apply. "We will do our utmost to prevent this from happening again, including thoroughly identifying the cause and upgrading our emergency response system."
