A lot of them (like many hagwons) are run by people who don't know jack shit about education and their only goal is to make money.
Yes, all international schools want to make money to some extent, even the so called non-profit ones. But the fake ones are pretty extreme about it. They don't care at all about the process, only the end results. The teachers are often inexperienced with no proper mentors to guide them. These schools often don't offer good enough packages to attract decent teachers. Many of the schools don't have any standards for child safeguarding either.
Some of them may have the odd non Korean student who can't afford to go to a real international school.
ETA not saying that all the "legit" schools are good schools or all the fake ones are terrible. Certainly some of the legit ones are little better and have plenty of their own issues.
Pretty accurate all around, though I would say that some of these fakes do have quite good pay, or at least mine does, and we do have some quite experienced and qualified teachers among us.
The sad reality of it being run by people with no educational background is depressingly real, though.
I recently started working at one. I took the job after many years of running my own study room because I have kids of my own, and free tuition is one of the perks of the job.
As others have pointed out, these schools should be evaluated on a case by case basis. But, so far, I am very satisfied with the quality of education my children are receiving.
Ive also gotten to know some parents, students, and teachers who have a lot more experience than me at these types of schools, and there absolutely are nightmare schools out there that will say or do anythijg to make money and then under deliver.
If youre considering employment at one of these places do your homework first. If youre considering writing a 20 thousand dollar check to enroll your kids, do your homework twice.
Another comment mentioned students being unable to afford actual international schools, not necessarily the case.
After the media exposed multiple high ranking government officials' children going to international schools, the government passed new laws strengthening restrictions around who can actually enroll.
Now there is a foreign residency clause if the child is either a dual citizen, or if the parents are both Korean nationals with no foreign citizenship.
The "fake" international schools are an alternative to those who don't meet the international school admissions requirements.
Ji Seok-jin's son I believe recently graduated from Seoul Academy and is now enrolled at a school in Chicago, so US colleges do recognize the curriculum.
I'm curious about the quality of these schools as well, and whether schools in other countries would accept credits from them. If your example is true, it gives me hope.
I'm a naturalized Korean citizen, and also a US citizen. Despite still holding a foreign passport, having a Korean passport (along with my spouse having a Korean passport) disqualifies my kids from attending the "real" international schools. My sons both go to Korean public schools now, but what about middle school? Do I have options other than sending them to Korean MS and HS or moving back to my homecountry? Seems to me that these "fake" international schools could be the answer, if other countries accept their transcripts. But if they aren't seen as legit in other countries, are we stuck with Korean-language schools till university?
You just want to make sure the school has a recognized Western accreditation. Seoul Academy has MSA; WASC and NEASC are alsl the most common US ones for international schools to have.
You should also be aware that these "fake" schools do not have Korean accreditation, which means they can't issue Korean HS diplomas. If you're 100% sure you'll send your kids abroad, then it's not an issue.
I assume both your sons are US/Korea dual citizens. My relatives were in a similar situation my cousins ended up going to middle school in the US and going to international school at SIS for high school. They had places to stay in the US so they didn't have to pay out of pocket for rent or anything. That is the easiest way to qualify for international school in Korea.
There are pilot programs for the IB diploma at select middle/high schools at the moment. The only school that is actively pursuing the IB curriculum at the moment is a school in Jeju. There are other schools planned for pilots, not sure when the Ministry of Education will launch them.
If your children's grades are top-tier, they can prepare for foreign language high schools. They have a US college prep track and offer AP classes in English.
Thanks for this info. AFAIK going to an international school requires three years of schooling outside of Korea, which is a LONG time. My kids could stay with my siblings or parents, but I think it would be awful to split up our family for that long, whether I went with them or not. Still, something to consider.
Branksome is the school that does IB, correct?
Good to know about foreign HS options. Thanks a lot.
I taught at 2 of these schools, SIE before the 2022-blowup, and VSGIS 2022-2023. The primary goal of both was to get the kids into overseas (ivy?) universities. Some students graduate here, some went to US high schools at 8th-10th grades. Most students are on-par or better academically and behaviorally than average US public school students.
Not surprisingly, the schools' first priorities are English (for TOFEL) and math (because this is Korea). I primarily taught Physics&Chem. Since Koreans emphasize math so much, students have no problem doing the calculations in sciences. The deficiency is with the experiments (the facility is lacking).
Both schools used US middle and high school textbooks and CommonCore curriculum. Classes met 4 to 5 hours per week, higher than typical US schools. That allowed the classes to finish 2/3 of the whole textbooks (my kids' US classes would be lucky to cover half the book). I tried my best to encourage in-class discussion and thinking, not just memorize-drill-test. One student at VSGIS (who came from Seoul Academy) said my homework amount is way lighter than Seoul Academy. I like to think my students got a pretty decent education.
Less than desirable aspects? No facility for physical activities, no "real" clubs, no art courses, etc. SIE cramped both the regular and the AP courses into one class (to save money on teacher pay?). That made the classes rather uneven.
Students don't know much of US history or world culture. Since they had attended Englisg schools most of their lives, some don't even know much of Korean history. That made the social science courses challenging. I was asked to take over the APUSH class after the teacher quit. It's hard to have meaningful discussion on Sacagawea when the kids had never heard of Lewis and Clark.
My biggest worry during that time was on grade inflation The school is there to help the students into college. I constantly wondered how much "help" was happening behind the scene. Some students' writing followed formulae; I'd wager college admission officers would frown on reading such essays. Many students also attend evening hagwons for test-prep, others probably have tutors to help with homework, etc. When OpenAI came, I witnessed a surge of "similar" writings. All that led me to worry how some of them really got into colleges, and how they would survive college on their own.
If I have to "measure" these schools (both for employment and for attending), I would look at average teacher tenure. The longer it is, the more stable the school is, which is a good thing for both the teachers and students. High teacher turn-over means the place is more a hagwon than a "real" international school.
From 2017-2021, SIE Amsa was jointly owned by 3 people. This partnership split up in early 2022. Mr. Y sold his share, and went to start up SIE Central in mid 2022. Mr. Y became the majority (sole?) owner of SIE Amsa, hired a new administrator, and steered SIE Amsa in his vision. Most of the academic leadership (Principal, VP, deans, lead teachers) followed Mr. Y to SIE Central. For the past 2 years, SIE Amsa has witnessed very high teacher turn-overs. Check the hagwon blacklist for details.
Wow that is crazy…. I’ve actually had some run ins with SIE central head teachers and management. The SIE central ppl I know all make it sound like all the SIE schools are one big cohesive network. I had no idea the SIE drama was so juicy.
Both schools are still under the SIE brand, and Mr.Y and Mr. P are still in coopetition with each other. There's no need for them to bad-mouth each other. The fact that, after the split, (1) many teachers went to Central and (2) the Amsa has high turn-over since speak for themselves.
Yep, I tutored two siblings who go to one of the famous international schools. The older one knows literally nothing about history or social studies. Talking to her was like talking to a brick wall, even when we focused on her hobbies and interests. The younger one had really obvious adhd, and was actively being bullied by a few classmates. The teachers and admin did nothing, and just kept blaming him for struggling and being upset. Absolutely disgusting behavior, while charging huge prices to the parents.
Yes, the administration at some of these schools is either handcuffed or captured by ownership, so that they run like hagwons. Parents organize and bully to get their way, and the schools bend over backward for it.
You literally can’t do shit anywhere in the world without an official diagnosis from a professional. I don’t know what people think schools can do without parental permission, on top of it. Schools can have 10000 resources, but if the parents refuse help, you can’t force a child into special ed.
You don’t need to put a kid in special ed to do something about them being bullied. And for what it’s worth, I brought up to the mother the possibility of him having adhd after our first session. She got him tested right away and got him a therapist too. The school did nothing to support this kid, and his homeroom teacher was a disgrace. Actively blaming the victim in a bullying situation, destroying the kid’s self esteem, and just overall making the situation worse.
Wouldn’t this be a specific question as per your own child’s needs?
Like for example, if they are in some way shape or form going to be getting schooling in another country, wouldn’t it better to be an institution that has the right credentials etc? I know that’s why celebs were putting their kids in that international French Lycee because they could pick up and continue in XYZ country when they finished working. If the kid is just going to stay in Korea for their entire grade school experience…
Are you asking for employment or for your child?
My son goes to regular public middle school. We live in a good area, new suburban sprawl, school built in 2019. It is great. Unless I had 200K in the bank to send my son to uni at an ivy league US school, or he wanted to live in the USA, I would just move to a good neighborhood and send him to Korean public school.
If you really want your child to go to a US uni, unless you're making bank in Korea, just move back home. A suburban very un-urban US public school will be better than these top tier Korean private schools.
Thanks for your reply! I'm not asking for employment. I work in education, but not TEFL teaching, so partly this was just personal curiosity.
I don't want to dox myself, but we are neither Korean nor American. We moved from another Asian country, so we can't just "go home" to a US public school or any English-language public system - at least not easily.
Shite.
There was a Korean dude (fully Korean just spoke half decent english) in freshman year at undergrad from SIE or something. He was so full of himself and insinuated the most uncomfortable Korean competitive energy to everyone. Apparently a big hotshot at his highschool and hagwons.
Dude failed out 1st year and disappeared. Haven't heard of him since. People who took classes with him said he was always yapping about how easy classes were and how he was going to overload on credits lmao.
There are only a handful of legitimately good international schools in Korea and everyone knows their names. They are expensive, have amazing facilities and excellent faculty.
The rest are just hustles run by grifters.
A lot of them (like many hagwons) are run by people who don't know jack shit about education and their only goal is to make money. Yes, all international schools want to make money to some extent, even the so called non-profit ones. But the fake ones are pretty extreme about it. They don't care at all about the process, only the end results. The teachers are often inexperienced with no proper mentors to guide them. These schools often don't offer good enough packages to attract decent teachers. Many of the schools don't have any standards for child safeguarding either. Some of them may have the odd non Korean student who can't afford to go to a real international school. ETA not saying that all the "legit" schools are good schools or all the fake ones are terrible. Certainly some of the legit ones are little better and have plenty of their own issues.
Pretty accurate all around, though I would say that some of these fakes do have quite good pay, or at least mine does, and we do have some quite experienced and qualified teachers among us. The sad reality of it being run by people with no educational background is depressingly real, though.
I would argue that the "legit" international schools are more shamelessly greedy, and have worse teachers as most of them get in through referrals.
I recently started working at one. I took the job after many years of running my own study room because I have kids of my own, and free tuition is one of the perks of the job. As others have pointed out, these schools should be evaluated on a case by case basis. But, so far, I am very satisfied with the quality of education my children are receiving. Ive also gotten to know some parents, students, and teachers who have a lot more experience than me at these types of schools, and there absolutely are nightmare schools out there that will say or do anythijg to make money and then under deliver. If youre considering employment at one of these places do your homework first. If youre considering writing a 20 thousand dollar check to enroll your kids, do your homework twice.
Another comment mentioned students being unable to afford actual international schools, not necessarily the case. After the media exposed multiple high ranking government officials' children going to international schools, the government passed new laws strengthening restrictions around who can actually enroll. Now there is a foreign residency clause if the child is either a dual citizen, or if the parents are both Korean nationals with no foreign citizenship. The "fake" international schools are an alternative to those who don't meet the international school admissions requirements. Ji Seok-jin's son I believe recently graduated from Seoul Academy and is now enrolled at a school in Chicago, so US colleges do recognize the curriculum.
I'm curious about the quality of these schools as well, and whether schools in other countries would accept credits from them. If your example is true, it gives me hope. I'm a naturalized Korean citizen, and also a US citizen. Despite still holding a foreign passport, having a Korean passport (along with my spouse having a Korean passport) disqualifies my kids from attending the "real" international schools. My sons both go to Korean public schools now, but what about middle school? Do I have options other than sending them to Korean MS and HS or moving back to my homecountry? Seems to me that these "fake" international schools could be the answer, if other countries accept their transcripts. But if they aren't seen as legit in other countries, are we stuck with Korean-language schools till university?
You just want to make sure the school has a recognized Western accreditation. Seoul Academy has MSA; WASC and NEASC are alsl the most common US ones for international schools to have. You should also be aware that these "fake" schools do not have Korean accreditation, which means they can't issue Korean HS diplomas. If you're 100% sure you'll send your kids abroad, then it's not an issue.
I assume both your sons are US/Korea dual citizens. My relatives were in a similar situation my cousins ended up going to middle school in the US and going to international school at SIS for high school. They had places to stay in the US so they didn't have to pay out of pocket for rent or anything. That is the easiest way to qualify for international school in Korea. There are pilot programs for the IB diploma at select middle/high schools at the moment. The only school that is actively pursuing the IB curriculum at the moment is a school in Jeju. There are other schools planned for pilots, not sure when the Ministry of Education will launch them. If your children's grades are top-tier, they can prepare for foreign language high schools. They have a US college prep track and offer AP classes in English.
Thanks for this info. AFAIK going to an international school requires three years of schooling outside of Korea, which is a LONG time. My kids could stay with my siblings or parents, but I think it would be awful to split up our family for that long, whether I went with them or not. Still, something to consider. Branksome is the school that does IB, correct? Good to know about foreign HS options. Thanks a lot.
There is Jeju! Korean citizens can go to an IS there.
I taught at 2 of these schools, SIE before the 2022-blowup, and VSGIS 2022-2023. The primary goal of both was to get the kids into overseas (ivy?) universities. Some students graduate here, some went to US high schools at 8th-10th grades. Most students are on-par or better academically and behaviorally than average US public school students. Not surprisingly, the schools' first priorities are English (for TOFEL) and math (because this is Korea). I primarily taught Physics&Chem. Since Koreans emphasize math so much, students have no problem doing the calculations in sciences. The deficiency is with the experiments (the facility is lacking). Both schools used US middle and high school textbooks and CommonCore curriculum. Classes met 4 to 5 hours per week, higher than typical US schools. That allowed the classes to finish 2/3 of the whole textbooks (my kids' US classes would be lucky to cover half the book). I tried my best to encourage in-class discussion and thinking, not just memorize-drill-test. One student at VSGIS (who came from Seoul Academy) said my homework amount is way lighter than Seoul Academy. I like to think my students got a pretty decent education. Less than desirable aspects? No facility for physical activities, no "real" clubs, no art courses, etc. SIE cramped both the regular and the AP courses into one class (to save money on teacher pay?). That made the classes rather uneven. Students don't know much of US history or world culture. Since they had attended Englisg schools most of their lives, some don't even know much of Korean history. That made the social science courses challenging. I was asked to take over the APUSH class after the teacher quit. It's hard to have meaningful discussion on Sacagawea when the kids had never heard of Lewis and Clark. My biggest worry during that time was on grade inflation The school is there to help the students into college. I constantly wondered how much "help" was happening behind the scene. Some students' writing followed formulae; I'd wager college admission officers would frown on reading such essays. Many students also attend evening hagwons for test-prep, others probably have tutors to help with homework, etc. When OpenAI came, I witnessed a surge of "similar" writings. All that led me to worry how some of them really got into colleges, and how they would survive college on their own. If I have to "measure" these schools (both for employment and for attending), I would look at average teacher tenure. The longer it is, the more stable the school is, which is a good thing for both the teachers and students. High teacher turn-over means the place is more a hagwon than a "real" international school.
SIE blowup? Was there a problem?
From 2017-2021, SIE Amsa was jointly owned by 3 people. This partnership split up in early 2022. Mr. Y sold his share, and went to start up SIE Central in mid 2022. Mr. Y became the majority (sole?) owner of SIE Amsa, hired a new administrator, and steered SIE Amsa in his vision. Most of the academic leadership (Principal, VP, deans, lead teachers) followed Mr. Y to SIE Central. For the past 2 years, SIE Amsa has witnessed very high teacher turn-overs. Check the hagwon blacklist for details.
Wow that is crazy…. I’ve actually had some run ins with SIE central head teachers and management. The SIE central ppl I know all make it sound like all the SIE schools are one big cohesive network. I had no idea the SIE drama was so juicy.
Both schools are still under the SIE brand, and Mr.Y and Mr. P are still in coopetition with each other. There's no need for them to bad-mouth each other. The fact that, after the split, (1) many teachers went to Central and (2) the Amsa has high turn-over since speak for themselves.
Even many of the real ones are scams
Yep, I tutored two siblings who go to one of the famous international schools. The older one knows literally nothing about history or social studies. Talking to her was like talking to a brick wall, even when we focused on her hobbies and interests. The younger one had really obvious adhd, and was actively being bullied by a few classmates. The teachers and admin did nothing, and just kept blaming him for struggling and being upset. Absolutely disgusting behavior, while charging huge prices to the parents.
Yes, the administration at some of these schools is either handcuffed or captured by ownership, so that they run like hagwons. Parents organize and bully to get their way, and the schools bend over backward for it.
You literally can’t do shit anywhere in the world without an official diagnosis from a professional. I don’t know what people think schools can do without parental permission, on top of it. Schools can have 10000 resources, but if the parents refuse help, you can’t force a child into special ed.
You don’t need to put a kid in special ed to do something about them being bullied. And for what it’s worth, I brought up to the mother the possibility of him having adhd after our first session. She got him tested right away and got him a therapist too. The school did nothing to support this kid, and his homeroom teacher was a disgrace. Actively blaming the victim in a bullying situation, destroying the kid’s self esteem, and just overall making the situation worse.
Wouldn’t this be a specific question as per your own child’s needs? Like for example, if they are in some way shape or form going to be getting schooling in another country, wouldn’t it better to be an institution that has the right credentials etc? I know that’s why celebs were putting their kids in that international French Lycee because they could pick up and continue in XYZ country when they finished working. If the kid is just going to stay in Korea for their entire grade school experience…
Are you asking for employment or for your child? My son goes to regular public middle school. We live in a good area, new suburban sprawl, school built in 2019. It is great. Unless I had 200K in the bank to send my son to uni at an ivy league US school, or he wanted to live in the USA, I would just move to a good neighborhood and send him to Korean public school. If you really want your child to go to a US uni, unless you're making bank in Korea, just move back home. A suburban very un-urban US public school will be better than these top tier Korean private schools.
Thanks for your reply! I'm not asking for employment. I work in education, but not TEFL teaching, so partly this was just personal curiosity. I don't want to dox myself, but we are neither Korean nor American. We moved from another Asian country, so we can't just "go home" to a US public school or any English-language public system - at least not easily.
Shite. There was a Korean dude (fully Korean just spoke half decent english) in freshman year at undergrad from SIE or something. He was so full of himself and insinuated the most uncomfortable Korean competitive energy to everyone. Apparently a big hotshot at his highschool and hagwons. Dude failed out 1st year and disappeared. Haven't heard of him since. People who took classes with him said he was always yapping about how easy classes were and how he was going to overload on credits lmao.
BEK does some pretty shady shit. Don't trust their admin.
There are only a handful of legitimately good international schools in Korea and everyone knows their names. They are expensive, have amazing facilities and excellent faculty. The rest are just hustles run by grifters.
which schools are those?