Fun facts about the Korean education system

This is part 1 of what began as one very long blog entry...

Here are some fun facts about the Korean education system (possibly not entirely correct, as the majority of this information was gathered by cobbling together the broken english explanations of my students):

1. In March, my 6th graders suddenly morphed into middle schoolers. March is when the school year begins.

2. Middle school is 3 years (the equivalent of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade), and high school is 3 years.

3. All schools, including elementary schools (to my general knowledge) rank their students.

4. Come middle school, boys and girls are taught in different classrooms, everyone cuts their hair to a certain length, and everyone wears a uniform unique to their school.

5. The quality of a school is very important - even to middle schoolers. I have one student whose family moved so he could go to a better middle school. Getting into a good high school is perhaps as high stakes as college admissions in the US. A rising high schooler's eligibility for top schools is determined by his or her class rank. Because "good" middle schools give much harder exams than "bad" middle schools, this supposedly evens out the playing field for any particular student's eligibility.

6. High school is the most challenging/educationally important time for a Korean student. High school students do not finish school until about 9pm at night (and then they go on to academies for extra studies, and do homework. At some point I imagine they must sleep, but I have no idea when).

7. The Korean version of the SAT - their college entrance exam - is the most important test in Korea. This test is so important that on the day the high school seniors are testing, other high school students do not come to school (because this is where the test is administered), all other schools - as well as businesses and companies and restaurants - cannot open or begin business until 9:30 (maybe 9am?). This is to ensure that there is no traffic for the students who take the test - if they arrive late they cannot take it, and must wait one year for when the test is administered again. I do know a few people who have siblings or friends who weren't satisfied with the score they received on this exam, and are taking the year off to study for a retest in order to get into a better university. I was also told that, because of the listening component of this test (part of the english proficiency), airplanes do not fly while the test is being administered o_O (I recognize just how ridiculous this sounds and perhaps should get a confirmation about this before writing it but here I am).