The College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) for the 2026 academic year, held on the 13th, was generally assessed as slightly more difficult than last year in Korean, math and English. In addition, there are projections that advantages and disadvantages will widen significantly by elective subject and test-taker type, as the rush of top-tier natural science students into social studies electives ("satham-run"), the reduction in medical school admissions, and the increase in 12th-grade students have all converged.
In Korean, math and English, problems aimed at differentiating the very top scorers were set in a challenging way, leading to evaluations that the perceived difficulty rose.
Yun Yun-gu, a teacher at Hanyang University Affiliated High School of Education, who heads the EBS on-site teachers group, said, "The overall difficulty of the 2026 CSAT is similar to last year's, but items intended to differentiate the very top scorers were somewhat more difficult than in the previous year's CSAT, so the difficulty students felt was likely somewhat higher compared with the 2025 CSAT."
Last year's CSAT excluded so-called "killer questions" while securing appropriate differentiation by section, and was evaluated as neither an "easy CSAT" nor a "hard CSAT." This year, however, while maintaining the stance of excluding killer questions, the share and difficulty of high-difficulty items appear to have been raised little by little.
For Korean, Han Byeong-hun, an EBS lead Korean instructor and a teacher at Deoksan High School in South Chungcheong, analyzed, "The difficulty of reading increased, but the difficulty of literature and the electives decreased."
Math is being assessed as having appropriately placed questions that separate the upper tier. Sim Joo-seok, an EBS lead math instructor and a teacher at Incheon Sky High School, said, "Overall, math difficulty is similar to last year's CSAT, but questions to secure differentiation among the upper tier also seem to have been appropriately included."
For English, Kim Ye-ryeong, an EBS lead instructor and a teacher at Daewon Foreign Language High School, said, "While excluding passages that are excessively complex and difficult in content, the overall attractiveness of incorrect choices was raised to secure differentiation," adding, "It is somewhat more difficult than last year's CSAT and similar to the September mock test."
In fact, in the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) September mock test, the share of students scoring in Grade 1 in English (raw score of 90 points or higher) was 4.5%, signaling higher difficulty as it was lower than the 4.71% recorded the year before last, which was the lowest on the main CSAT since the shift to absolute grading.
One of the biggest variables in this year's CSAT is the so-called "satham-run," in which even the very top of the natural science cohort flocked to the social studies area. As more major universities' natural science departments recognize social studies for minimum CSAT standards and similar requirements, the number of students who hope to enter science and engineering but chose social studies instead of science has surged.
However, as imbalances in difficulty arose among elective subjects within social and science studies, concerns are being raised that advantages and disadvantages by subject choice could widen. According to Jongno Academy, among the nine social studies subjects, Social and Culture, which had the highest selection rate at 36.0%, was set somewhat more difficult than last year's CSAT, while Life and Ethics, which accounted for a 30.8% application rate, was easier than last year. Jongno Academy analyzed, "A difficulty imbalance occurred in the two most-selected subjects."
A similar pattern is said to have appeared in science studies. Earth Science I (35.3%), which had many applicants, was somewhat easier than last year, while Life Science I (34.3%) was somewhat more difficult than last year. Jongno Academy projected, "As standard score gaps emerge in these four subjects with the highest elective applications, advantages and disadvantages could become significant depending on how each university reflects scores."
Changes in the test-taker landscape are also cited as a variable that will have a considerable impact on this year's admissions.
Applicants for the 2026 CSAT totaled 554,174, up 31,504 (6.0%) from the previous year. It was the highest in seven years since the 2019 academic year (594,924). With those born in 2007, the Year of the Golden Pig, entering 12th grade, current students increased by 31,120 to 371,897 (67.1%), while graduates decreased by 1,862 to 159,922 (28.9%).
Medical school quotas, which attract the very top of the natural science cohort, also became a variable. Medical school admissions fell by 1,487 from the previous year to 3,123, returning to the pre-expansion level and likely intensifying competition among the extreme top tier.