Suneung수능

Overview

The College Scholastic Ability Test (대학수학능력시험), known as Suneung, is South Korea's national university entrance exam, run by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) under the Ministry of Education. It is held once a year, on a single fixed day in November, and its score is one of the main inputs universities use to admit students, alongside a candidate's school record (학교생활기록부). The exam that will be held on 19 November 2026 is referred to as the "2027학년도" CSAT, because its results feed into admissions for the 2027 academic year.

Who can apply

A candidate must have graduated from high school, be in their final year and expected to graduate, or hold an equivalent qualification through the national qualification examination (검정고시) for high-school-level equivalency. Both current final-year students (고3) and past graduates re-sitting the exam (재수생) are eligible every year. Current students normally submit their application as a batch through their own school; graduates apply either through their former high school or through the education office covering their current residence.

Exam pattern

Suneung is sat in up to five timed sessions on the same day. Korean History is compulsory for every candidate; the Exploration and Second Foreign Language/Classical Chinese areas are elective.

Candidates choose their Exploration subjects from a single combined list of 17 Social Studies and Science subjects (no separate quota for either group), or instead from 6 Vocational electives aimed at vocational-track students; up to two subjects may be taken in either case. The Social Studies group covers 9 subjects (including Life and Ethics, Korean Geography, East Asian History, Economics, Politics and Law, and Society and Culture); the Science group covers 8 subjects across Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science, each offered at two levels (Ⅰ and Ⅱ). The Second Foreign Language/Classical Chinese session offers 9 subjects: Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese and Classical Chinese (한문), all at a first-year (Ⅰ) level.

Syllabus

Questions are drawn from the national high-school curriculum and are designed to be solvable by a student who has completed that curriculum with a sound grasp of its core concepts, rather than testing material beyond it. Each subject area sets questions on its own common and elective content as defined in the curriculum; KICE also aligns a share of each year's questions with EBS's CSAT-linked broadcast lecture content (around 50% of items by subject, for recent cycles).

Marking and results

Korean, Mathematics and the Exploration subjects are scored on a relative (norm-referenced) basis: a candidate's raw score is converted into a standard score, a percentile, and a 9-level grade, all based on how the whole year's test-taking group performed. For Korean and Mathematics, the standard score scale runs 0–200, centred so the test-taking group's mean standard score is 100 with a standard deviation of 20; for Exploration subjects the scale runs 0–100, centred on a mean of 50 with a standard deviation of 10. Percentile shows the share of candidates who scored at or below a given standard score. Grades are assigned by standard-score rank across the whole group, with the top 4% of candidates placed in Grade 1, the next band in Grade 2, and so on down to Grade 9.

English, Korean History and Second Foreign Language/Classical Chinese are graded on an absolute (criterion-referenced) basis instead: the score report shows only a 9-level grade worked out from fixed raw-score cut-offs, with no standard score or percentile. For English, Grade 1 requires a raw score of 90 or above out of 100, with each lower grade set at a further 10-point band down to Grade 9 below 20. Korean History uses the same nine-grade idea on its own 50-point scale.

Score reports for the 2027학년도 cycle are scheduled for release on 11 December 2026.

Important dates

The 2027학년도 CSAT (for candidates entering university in the 2027 academic year) is scheduled for Thursday, 19 November 2026, with results notified on 11 December 2026.

How to apply

Final-year high school students apply as a group through their own school, usually coordinated by their homeroom teacher. Graduates re-sitting the exam apply either at their former high school or, if their registered residence falls under a different education office than their old school, at the education office responsible for their current address. Candidates choose at application time whether to sit the Exploration and Second Foreign Language/Classical Chinese sessions, and which specific subjects to take within them.

After the exam

CSAT scores feed into two broad admission tracks. In the "Jeongsi" (정시/regular) track, universities admit candidates mainly by a quantitative score computed from the CSAT, with the exact subjects and weighting (standard score, converted standard score, or percentile) varying by university and programme. In the "Susi" (수시/early) track, the CSAT typically plays a smaller role, often only as a minimum qualifying threshold, while the school record and university-specific assessments (interviews, essays, portfolios) carry more weight. A growing number of universities also factor the school record into Jeongsi decisions alongside the CSAT score.

Preparation tips

Because Korean, Mathematics and Exploration scores depend on how the whole test-taking group performs that year, practising with full-length sessions under real time limits matters as much as mastering content, since pacing affects a candidate's relative standing, not just their raw score. Candidates sitting English, Korean History or Second Foreign Language/Classical Chinese should note these are graded on fixed cut-offs rather than against other candidates, so a consistent score above a grade threshold is enough, without needing to also out-perform peers.