Sit at a table of Korean twenty-somethings for an hour and you will hear a string of syllables that sounds like a chant: 서연고, 서성한, 중경외시. Somebody says a cousin got into a 건동홍 school, somebody else winces or nods, and the conversation moves on. Nobody explains, because everyone already knows. This article is the explanation we wish we had given our first students: what the rhymes spell out, where they came from, and why you should know them without letting them steer your decisions.
How a rhyme is built
Each rhyme is made of the first syllable of each university's name. 서연고 is 서울대 (Seoul National), 연세대 (Yonsei) and 고려대 (Korea University): 서, 연, 고. Once you see the trick, the whole system opens up. 서성한 is 서강 (Sogang), 성균관 (Sungkyunkwan) and 한양 (Hanyang). The longer ones simply carry four syllables for four schools.
| Rhyme | Syllables | Schools |
|---|---|---|
| 서연고 | 서 · 연 · 고 | Seoul National, Yonsei, Korea University |
| 서성한 | 서 · 성 · 한 | Sogang, Sungkyunkwan, Hanyang |
| 중경외시 | 중 · 경 · 외 · 시 | Chung-Ang, Kyung Hee, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, University of Seoul |
| 건동홍 | 건 · 동 · 홍 | Konkuk, Dongguk, Hongik |
| 국숭세단 | 국 · 숭 · 세 · 단 | Kookmin, Soongsil, Sejong, Dankook |
| 광명상가 | 광 · 명 · 상 · 가 | Kwangwoon, Myongji, Sangmyung, Catholic University |
Our own reading aid. The syllables are the first syllables of the Korean school names; the school lists are the ones in the table below.
That is also a small Korean lesson hiding inside a ranking. Korean loves clipping names to their first syllables, and once you read Hangul comfortably you can decode a lot of campus slang on your own. It is a good reason to learn to read before you arrive.
The mnemonics, spelled out
Here is the folk order as people usually recite it, from the top group down. The right-hand column is as vague as the thing it describes, on purpose.
| Group | Universities | Rough order |
|---|---|---|
| 서연고 (Seo-Yeon-Ko) | Seoul National, Yonsei, Korea University | Top group in folk talk |
| 서성한 (Seo-Seong-Han) | Sogang, Sungkyunkwan, Hanyang | Next |
| 중경외시 (Jung-Kyung-Oe-Si) | Chung-Ang, Kyung Hee, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, University of Seoul | Next |
| 건동홍 (Geon-Dong-Hong) | Konkuk, Dongguk, Hongik | Next |
| 국숭세단 (Guk-Sung-Se-Dan) | Kookmin, Soongsil, Sejong, Dankook | Next |
| 광명상가 (Gwang-Myeong-Sang-Ga) | Kwangwoon, Myongji, Sangmyung, Catholic University | Next |
Community usage (Orbi, Linkareer, blogs). Member lists vary slightly between sources. Not an official ranking.
The rhyme describes entrance scores, not teaching or character.
What it really is
The rhyme grew out of admission scores for Korean applicants, and the boundaries shift by department: a popular major at a 건동홍 school can need a higher score than an unpopular one at a 중경외시 school. The growth of undeclared-major admission is also blurring the lines. For foreign students the picture differs again, because international admissions use separate tracks, language requirements and tuition.
Read that paragraph twice, because it contains the three reasons the rhyme is a poor guide for you. It was built for Korean applicants sitting a domestic exam, it is blurry at the edges even for them, and the door you would walk through as a foreign student is a different door with its own rules.
How Koreans use it in daily life
You will hear it when a friend explains where a classmate studies, when parents compare options, and when recruiters sort résumés. Saying 'he went to a 서성한 school' is shorthand for roughly how competitive the entrance exam was, not a statement about how good the teaching or the person is. Many Koreans joke about it, and many resent it.
For a foreigner the useful skill is listening, not ranking. If a new acquaintance mentions a school by its rhyme, they are telling you something about how they see themselves and you, and the right response is curiosity, not a score. Ask what they studied. That is a better question anyway.
How to choose without the rhyme
If the rhyme is not the tool, what is? Three questions do most of the work, and none of them needs a ranking table.
Start from the department
Strong programmes sit in every group. A famous school with a weak department for your subject is a poor trade.
Check the money and the Korean
International tracks often have different tuition and language requirements, such as TOPIK or English scores. Ask each admissions office for its own list rather than relying on the label.
Think about city and support
Housing, a dorm place, scholarships and an international office matter every single day. A rhyme does not.
Put together, those three cards say the same thing (and a famous school with a weak department for your subject is a poor trade): the decision is about a department, a budget and a place to live, and the label is a distraction from all three.
Use real rankings too
If you want to check how a school fares abroad, the world rankings are a better starting point, and they are public. Even those measure research and reputation more than how well a school teaches beginners in Korean. QS and THE publish world rankings with different methods, so they give different orders. In the QS World University Rankings 2026, 23 Seoul universities appear and Yonsei ranks 50th. THE tends to place KAIST and Sungkyunkwan higher.
Treat rankings as one input beside the course, the city, the money and your Korean. The two lists below are the original sources, so you can read the methods yourself and decide how much weight each deserves.
Questions that beat a ranking
When you email an admissions office, a rhyme cannot answer a single one of these, and the office can answer all of them. Which tracks exist for international applicants, and is there a separate tuition schedule? Which Korean level or TOPIK score does the department ask for, and which English score if it is taught in English? Is there a dorm place, and how is it allocated? Does the international office help with housing, counselling and visa paperwork, and in which language? What do students in this department do in their first term, and who do they ask when they are lost?
Write the answers down in one table, one row per school, and you will find that the choice mostly makes itself. Two schools that look far apart in folk talk often look much closer on this sheet, and two schools that sound similar can turn out to be very different on language support.
A conversation, decoded
A last note before the example. Everything above is about reading the rhyme, not about believing it. Knowing the system makes you a better listener, and that is its whole value for a newcomer.
Imagine a Korean classmate says her brother is at a 중경외시 school and her cousin just got into a 서성한 school. In the folk reading she has just told you that both are well regarded and that the cousin's school is the one the family is prouder of. In the real world she has told you almost nothing about either young man: not what they study, not whether they enjoy it, not whether the teaching is good. The rhyme compresses a lot of family feeling into a few syllables, and the sensible reaction is to smile and ask what the brother is studying.
Use the rhyme to understand small talk, never to judge a person.
Our honest advice
Choose a department, a city and a support system you can afford. A famous rhyme will not teach you the grammar that carries you through lectures. Whatever school you pick, the first term goes better when you already read Korean comfortably and can follow a classroom in it.
None of this is a promise about admission, a visa or a job. The label of a school does not guarantee any of them, and neither does ours. What it can do is help you understand the people you are about to meet.