On the 7th, as applications open for the 2027 academic year's rolling admissions, a staff member posts a notice about the 2027 rolling admissions outside the Admissions Office at Ajou University in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province; this year, 194 general universities select 80.4% (281,205 of 349,705) of all admissions through rolling admissions. /Courtesy of News1

A computer error occurred in the application system just before the deadline for submitting early-admission applications for the 2027 academic year, extending the submission time by 60 minutes. As a result, criticism is emerging among test-takers that the fairness of application opportunities was undermined.

According to the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE) on the 12th, at about 5:50 p.m. on the 11th, the server of Uway Apply, one of the major firms handling early-admission applications, shut down. The system did not return to normal until after 6:20 p.m.

It appears the network became overloaded as users flooded in all at once with only about 10 minutes left before the deadline. This is said to be the first time a server has completely gone down at the last minute during the early-application submission process.

KCUE decided to delay the application deadline by one hour to 7 p.m. However, for test-takers who still failed to complete their submissions despite this measure, the council will review draft records saved on the server and pursue individual remedies.

KCUE and the contractor are discussing measures for affected applicants, but with more than about 100 universities involved, it is expected to take several days to finalize the relief plan. If remedial applicants are concentrated in certain departments or universities, higher competition ratios could become a major variable in test-takers' last-minute strategies.

The admissions industry believes the extension likely had a decisive impact on test-takers' prospects. The closing stage of early admissions is marked by intense strategic maneuvering, and an extra 60 minutes of submission time is seen as a variable that could shift the landscape.

In fact, while some test-takers may have given up because they could not submit on time due to the system failure, others may have benefited from the extra time. Some universities published department-by-department application counts at 6 p.m., the original deadline, enabling students to check those figures and then submit strategically during the extended period.

The Ministry of Education plans to determine the cause of the failure and devise measures to prevent a recurrence.

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