This study examined the differences in patterns of private tutoring in high school between students who entered the university through the “Comprehensive evaluation system of high school records for university admission” (Records group) and CSAT (CSAT group). The data are based on a survey on the private tutoring experience of freshmen who entered A university in 2018.
The results are as follows. First, there were few differences in private tutoring patterns between the two groups during their first and second years. However, variations in the patterns between the groups were apparent in their senior year or repeated year when the CSAT group intensely increased their participation rate, time, and expense to private tutoring.
Second, the two groups also have different private tutoring ‘mode’. The Records group usually had ‘focused’ on a private tutoring for high school GPA in the first year and took part in diverse private tutoring activities such as extracurricular activities, writing Statement of Purpose, interviews, CSAT in the senior year. The CSAT group, on the other hand, participated in private tutoring to prepare for the CSAT and GPA from the lower grades. In addition to that, as they became seniors, they ‘focused’ on private tutoring for CSAT and essay test.
Third, what kind of private tutoring students had taken was determined based on the characteristics of the evaluation criteria. While students actively had utilized private tutoring from the first grade to manage a GPA, as their grades went up, the participation rate and time of private tutoring for the CSAT increased. Students rarely participated in private educations for extracurricular activities, interviews, or essays. Even if some students received these kinds of private tutoring, they got it in the very short term when they faced a college entrance exam.
The two groups maximized the advantages of private tutoring to prepare for college entrance. As long as private tutoring is treated as a tool for the college entrance exam, our common sense that the burden of private tutoring would decrease by changing college admission policies needs to be reconsidered.