Which Uni to go to in Korea
I’m trying to decide which university to attend in Korea for International Studies / Political Science & International Relations, and I’d really appreciate some advice.
So far, I’ve been accepted to HUFS, and they offered me a 50% scholarship for the first semester, which saves me around $1,500 USD. I like that HUFS seems pretty international, and they claim that the International Studies program is taught 100% in English, which is a huge plus for me.
The downside is that the scholarship opportunities after the first semester don’t seem that great. From what I understand, even with an excellent GPA, the maximum scholarship is only around $660 USD per semester, while tuition is normally around $2.5k–3k USD per semester.
I also applied to Sogang University. I think I could potentially get a full scholarship for the first semester there, and their scholarship system afterwards seems much better — apparently you can get up to 100% tuition reduction depending on GPA. The normal tuition is more expensive though, around $4k–5k USD per semester.
My concern with Sogang is that it may not be as international, and they mention that some courses might need to be taken in Korean. I only started learning Korean about 2 months ago, so that worries me a bit. Does anyone know if studying there with only English would realistically be manageable?
Then there’s Yonsei UIC, which honestly seems like the best option academically and internationally. But tuition is around $5k–6k USD per semester. They do offer up to 100% tuition scholarships from the second semester onward, but I imagine those are extremely competitive. Paying full tuition for potentially 8 semesters would be a massive financial burden.
I also applied to Korea University, which is another top school and costs around $5k USD per semester. They also have GPA-based scholarships, but again I’m not sure how realistic it is to actually maintain the grades needed in such a competitive environment.
My long-term goal is definitely to do a master’s degree later at a University in Europe/US:
Which Uni would you go to?
Does the university name matter that much for grad school admissions?
Or would it be smarter to choose the place where I can realistically maintain the best GPA and save money?
And do you think Sogang is doable if you mainly speak English?
What would you guys do in my situation?