Daewon Foreign Language High School
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| Daewon Foreign Language High School 대원외국어고등학교 / 大元外國語高等學校 |
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| Location | |
|---|---|
| Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, Korea, Republic of | |
| Information | |
| Principal | Choi Won-ho (최원호) |
| Students | approx. 1,250 |
| Faculty | approx. 85 |
| Type | Private |
| Motto | Koreans Branching Out Around the World (세계로 뻗는 한국인이 된다) |
| Established | 1984 |
| Tree | Wisteria |
| Flower | |
| Song | |
| Homepage | [1] |
Daewon Foreign Language High School (Hangeul: 대원외국어고등학교, Hanja: 大元外國語高等學校), located in Seoul, is a prominent high school in South Korea. The private, coeducational, college preparatory school was founded in 1983 with the stated goal of nurturing future global leaders. Daewon is the oldest and largest of the 31 foreign language high schools in Korea. All Daewon students choose one language among Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, or German and they intensively study the language of their choice during the three years of their high school. Korean and English are mandatory subjects. Also, basic Japanese is a mandatory subject as well, regardless of what language the student chose upon entering the school.
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[edit] Academics
Daewon Foreign Language High School provides the typical high school Korean curriculum with a larger number of classes on English and other foreign languages. The Global Leadership Program (GLP), formerly called the Study Abroad Program (SAP), provides a variety of classes including SAT prep and writing, to prepare students for U.S. college admissions. Many graduates of the program currently attend American universities.
[edit] Admission
The school receives applications from around the country. While the school was founded to focus on foreign language education, it serves more as a preparatory school focus on admission into prestigious Korean universities and recently, top U.S. universities. The school's primary language of instruction is Korean. To be able to enroll into this particularly advanced level school, students must be ready to take the Daewon entrance examinations. The test allows the teachers, or "professors", to understand a person's ability. The examination consists of a listening section, essay, and creative/logical mathematics. After the mathematics section is completed, students are to be put into a room with one or mostly two judges. During that time, students answer the questions the judges ask the questions mainly being the creative/logical mathematics problems they solved. Some explanation is necessary.
Like most schools in Korea, Daewon's school year begins in March, the second semester begins in September, and ends February of the following year.
[edit] Extracurricular activities
Like most Korean high schools, Daewon has no varsity sports teams, but there are more than 30 extracurricular activities available to students. These extracurricular activities are called Dong-a-ris, and all students are required to join one (and only one) of these activities. Those students who are preparing to attend a university abroad, or GLP students, can join two to four extra dong-a-ris, or GLP dong-a-ris. Dong-a-ris vary in their kind, stretching from academic groups to sports and arts. An English language debate team and Model UN club are among the clubs available. Daewon also has its own branch of Amnesty International, through which students participate in human rights activities.
[edit] Admissions
Students can gain admission to Daewon Foreign Language High School by demonstrating ability in a variety of areas, but the most common way students are accepted is through Daewon's own admissions test, which includes written exams and an interview. Daewon typically draws students from the top 5% of Korean middle schools.
[edit] Faculty
The Daewon faculty includes graduates of Korean universities such as Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University as well as a small number of foreign instructors who teach Chinese, French, Spanish, German, and English conversation classes. Current and former GLP teachers include graduates of Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, Duke University, Williams College, the University of Virginia, Columbia University, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Dartmouth College, and the University of Michigan.
[edit] GLP(Global Leadership Program)
Students in the Global Leadership Program prepare for study in the US by taking additional courses such as English literature and English Composition after regular school hours. This program, which began in 1998, is the largest and oldest of its kind in Korea, with 320 current students and 258 graduates.
Although they do not follow the AP or the IB curriculum, all GLP courses are comparable in depth and rigor. Most of the GLP teachers have studied at top schools such as Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, and U.Penn.
As of June 2006, the average SAT Reasoning Test score (75 students tested) was 1485 on the 1600 scale and 2171 on the 2400 scale. The most popular Subject Tests were Math Level II (78 students tested) and Chemistry (56 students tested), and the average scores were 787 and 745, respectively.
Daewon does not offer any AP courses, and no one is required or encouraged to take the exams. Yet many students have taken the initiative to study for various AP Exams on their own time. The most popular was the Calculus BC Exam, and 52 of the 63 students who took the exam scored a 5.
Since the first GLP class of 2000, the vast majority of the students have matriculated at US colleges and universities:
