“New Rules and Economy Strain Adoption Agencies”

Here’s an article that can be seen in the New York Times on Adoption Agencies in the US.  -GS

—

By DAN FROSCH

Faced with a tightening of federal regulations governing foreign adoptions, and suffering from a downturn in business, international adoption agencies in the United States are finding themselves in financial straits and closing their doors in unprecedented numbers, experts say.

At least 15 percent of agencies that specialize in international adoptions have recently shut down, are expected to do so this year or will probably merge with other agencies to survive, according to the National Council for Adoption, an advocacy and education group in Virginia.

In some cases, the closings have come without warning, leaving people without the thousands of dollars in fees they paid to an agency or the child they had thought would finally be theirs.

They have also led to lawsuits and criminal investigations, as some struggling agencies have apparently turned to more desperate business practices to stay afloat.

“I don’t think anyone thought we’d see the number of closings that we have,” the adoption council’s vice president of training and agency services, Chuck Johnson, said. “We’ve heard of agencies still collecting fees from families and then announcing they’re going out of business the next week.”

For couples like Susan and Jim Paulson of Lafayette, Colo., what began as an aching desire to have another child turned quickly into a nightmare.

In 2006, with their son Quinn, 2, dying from a degenerative neurological disorder, the Paulsons decided to adopt a third child. Their first-born, a boy, now 6, would be lonely without his brother, they reasoned. And so would they.

After contacting Lisa Novak, the director, along with her husband, of the Claar Foundation, a Boulder adoption agency, the Paulsons paid roughly $11,000 in processing fees and waited for the arrival of a baby girl from Nepal.

But after the adoption collapsed amid political turmoil in Nepal last May, the Paulsons said they asked for some of their money back but never received a response from Ms. Novak. She was arrested on March 26 on charges of defrauding families of tens of thousands of dollars by promising adoptions but never completing them.

“It was devastating,” Ms. Paulson said. “We really trusted them.”

Ms. Novak’s lawyer, Lance Goff, said that there was no merit to the charges, and that the Paulsons knew the risks of adopting in Nepal and could have continued working with Claar to adopt a child in another country. Under their contract, he said, the Paulsons were not entitled to their money back.

“No adoption agency can guarantee a couple a child,” Mr. Goff said, adding that what agencies did was help couples “put together the paperwork so they can adopt, and there’s no evidence that the Claar Foundation breached that obligation to its clients.”

Mr. Goff added that prospective parents “need to have the fortitude and the flexibility to roll with the punches if they are committed to getting a child.”

The story of the Paulsons, and that of other people the Claar agency is accused of swindling, exemplifies a trend in a field that until recently operated largely free of federal regulation.

International adoptions in the United States fell to 19,613 children in the last fiscal year, from 22,884 in 2004, with one factor being red tape in countries like Russia and China making it more difficult for people to adopt there.

On April 25, the Vietnamese government announced it would stop processing new adoption applications from Americans after July 1, following a report by the United States Embassy in Hanoi that accused the adoption system there of widespread corruption. The Vietnamese government has denied the charges.

And in Guatemala, the government has placed a temporary one-month hold on pending adoptions as each case is reviewed because the system there has been plagued with corruption.

The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which went into effect in the United States on April 1, is also having an impact.

The convention requires that to become accredited, international adoption agencies must comply with uniform standards that include training for prospective parents, establishing staff qualifications and transparent bookkeeping. But the standards apply only to agencies that bring children to the United States from countries that agreed to abide by the convention, more than 70 in all.

“From what I’ve seen, it looks like some of those agencies have looked at the Hague standards and simply can’t meet them,” Kemy Monahan, who coordinates adoption compliance with the Hague Convention for the State Department, said of many of the agencies that have gone out of business recently.

Ms. Monahan and Mr. Johnson said they thought that the Hague regulations, intended to safeguard adoptions better, would eventually weed out agencies that operated on the fringes of the law.

That seems to be happening already in some places.

In Michigan, a district court judge recently barred the operators of Waiting Angels Adoption Services from participating in adoptions for nearly three years. The state attorney general’s office has also asked the judge to order the operators to refund $327,000 to prospective parents who paid the agency to facilitate adoptions of children from Guatemala that never took place, said a spokesman for the office, Matt Frendewey.

In Santa Barbara, Calif., the director of the Adoption International Program, Orson Mozes, was charged on April 1 with 62 felony counts of theft by false pretenses. Mr. Mozes, who has since disappeared, is accused of taking more than $1 million from families who paid to adopt children from Eastern Europe, adoptions that rarely happened, according to an arrest affidavit.

Reece and Amanda Heinrich of Holt, Mich., said they were out more than $14,000 after an adoption arranged through Waiting Angels fell apart. The Heinrichs, who are unable to have children of their own, fell in love with a baby boy from Guatemala after the agency showed them pictures and a video of him.

They named the baby Jamyson, but after waiting more than a year, the Heinrichs said, Waiting Angels told them there were complications with the birth mother and that Jamyson was no longer available for adoption. They were refused a refund, they said.

The couple have since adopted twins through a domestic agency, but the experience has left scars.

“I’d honestly rather get stabbed in the stomach than have to go through that again,” Mr. Heinrich said. “We were relying on somebody to help us create a family, and then to have our hearts ripped out. I considered Jamyson my son.”

In Colorado, on the heels of the police investigation into the Claar Foundation, the state Department of Human Services found, in a report released May 1, that 10 of 22 local international adoption agencies whose financial records they examined were losing money. As a result, Colorado will tighten its licensing standards to require that agencies maintain two months’ worth of operating costs in reserves and prohibit them from charging an entire adoption fee up front, said Liz McDonough, a department spokeswoman.

The Paulsons and others have filed lawsuits against Claar and its directors. This year, the Paulsons won a $5,000 judgment in small claims court from Ms. Novak, but Ms. Paulson said she had not received any money.

Mr. Goff, Ms. Novak’s lawyer, said Claar had no revenue because it was no longer operating. Ms. Novak is scheduled to appear in Boulder County Court on May 19.

The Paulsons said their experience had left them too traumatized and without enough money to try adopting again. The quilt they bought for a new daughter has been stashed away in a closet, a list of potential names discarded.

Worst of all, Quinn Paulson died on Feb. 5.

His older brother “kept asking when his new sister was coming home, that she would be able to play with him all the time,” Ms. Paulson said. “It feels really unfair.”

Domestic Adoption Exceeds Overseas for 1st Time

Thanks to K@W for this article. GS

——-

By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter

The number of orphans adopted last year declined from a year ago, falling for the sixth consecutive year. But a greater number of orphans found a new family here than overseas for the first time.

Also, about 77 percent of elementary, middle and high school students studied at cram schools and other privately run learning institutes, spending a monthly average of 220,000 won. It took 11 months for high school and university graduates to land a job.

According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) Sunday, the number of Korean orphans adopted both at home and abroad stood at 2,652 in 2007, down from 3,231 a year earlier. It has decreased for the sixth straight year since 2001.

But more orphans were adopted by local families than by foreign ones last year for the first time. Local households adopted 1,388 orphans, accounting for 52.3 percent of the total, while 1,264 orphans, or 47.7 percent, found a new home in foreign countries.

The statistical office also said nearly 89 percent of elementary school students nationwide attended arts and other private educational institutes in 2007. It was 74.6 percent for middle school students and 62 percent for high school students.

Families spent an average of 220,000 won a month on private education. Households in Seoul set aside an average of 284,000 won a month for private education expenditure, 2.3 times the 121,000 won spent by households in rural areas.

It took 11 months on average for high school and university graduates to find jobs last year, down from 12 months in 2006. The ratio of those who found work within a year from graduation to total graduates rose to 74.9 percent from 74.2 percent a year ago.

About 28.1 percent of young adults aged 15-24 were participating in economic activities in 2007, down from 30.2 percent the previous year, as more youths continued to study at a higher level. Their jobless rate fell to 8.8 percent from 10 percent.

The statistical office also said among young people aged 5-24, 4.9 out of every 100,000 committed suicide in 2006, down from 6.4 a year earlier. A total of 664 youngsters killed themselves, or 1.8 every day.

Fewer Korean adolescents smoked cigarettes in 2007 than a year earlier. Sixteen percent of male high schools smoked last year, down from 20.7 percent a year ago, while the portion of female high school smokers to the total inched down to 5.2 percent from 5.3 percent.

The number of reported child abuse cases came to 8,903 in 2006, more than double that from a year earlier, the statistical office said.

Adolescents aged 15-19 spent two hours daily on average in front of their computers in 2007, while 88.2 percent of them had cellular phones. They read an average of 25 books last year.

Children and adolescents under 18 totaled 11.1 million, accounting for 22.9 percent of the country’s entire population. It was down from 23.4 percent in 2007 and 23.8 percent in 2006.

leehs@koreatimes.co.kr

Health Disparities in Adoptee Community

I was struck by a number of posts on the K@W listserv related to health disparities and access to medical records. As Asian Americans, Korean Americans or other people of color, we are widely undocumented in relation to increased health risks regarding diseases.

A good friend of mine brought up the point that for many of us KADS, we are “a minority within a minority.” That is to say-we are Asian Americans, Korean Americans, and even smaller still-we are Korean Adoptees. There has generally been very little scholarly work published on health disparities in the Asian American communities, and even less for Korean Americans in this country due to our relatively small size in relation to other Asian American groups. These health risks can be elevated for women more than men for some diseases such as breast cancer, and osteoporosis.

Even more overlooked are Korean Adoptees’ health disparities especially when there is so much secrecy involved with birth parent rights and inaccessibility of health records for adult adoptees. Many of us are put in particularly precarious situations when next of kin (biologically) are out of reach or unable to be contacted in cases of need. I actually remember being in Korea a few years ago and asking if Holt would make a more concerted effort to track down my birth parents should my health be at risk, or should I need for instance ie (bone marrow transplants). I was told that they would do everything in their power to track them down, but something deep down tells me there is nothing really there to look for.

Again I come back to the struggle and psychological battle I wage with myself over access to information, and the protection of the adoptees’ rights over the birth parent(s)’ rights. It’s an extremely sensitive issue-an issue that is no closer to being solved in my mind than in any other adoptees’ I’m sure. How do we preserve our own right to understand our own genetic health whilst protecting the rights of our birth parents. At first it seems relatively easy to dissect. Why not have birth parents have genetic work-ups done upon relinquishment. But then you consider the ramifications of such a procedure including cost to agencies, psychological cost to birth parents, and then the inevitable question, “if birth parents knew they had to take these tests would they still relinquish their child for adoption? and “what level of responsibility as birth parents in cases of genetic need do our birth parents really have to us?” It’s a heavy burden as it is for many birth parents, and much more so if they were to be subjected to documentation of genetic histories.

But…It’s my right! That’s what I keep saying to myself. It’s my right to know WHO I AM, and what I could potentially be up against in the future. Adoptee or not, it is a question that some want to know, and some do not want to know. What are my chances of getting cancer, does my family have a history of heart disease etc. etc.? Many non-adoptees have this very ability to access their family geneology. Not all, but most have the ability to obtain these records whether information is passed on by fellow family members orally, or by professionals/doctors. What access do we as transracial adoptees have to this information? How is this right denied to us, and can this denial be considered a human rights violation? Perhaps that comes as an exaggeration for many, but when faced with a debilitating condition or disease-one that requires intensive medications, medical procedures etc.-you have to admit the thought of it can be overwhelming, and at times I’m sure helpless.

But I do believe that we as adoptees deserve to have access to these records regardless of whether we plan to look at them or not. And I stand in solidarity for all the adoptees who are battling for their lives with diseases and conditions that are beyond my comprehension. I believe strongly in the power of the community we have created as adoptees, and perhaps we don’t know our medical or family genetic histories, but we know that we are all in the same boat and that we will continue to stand together and create new histories together.

And to cheer many of you up after such a somber post, please check out this video!

-GS

korean baby singing hey jude

“Borderlands 2″ Seeking Submissions for Anthology

Thanks to the AFAAD list for posting this opportunity to be included in the next Borderlands Anthology.  Take a look.  -GS

—
Call for Submissions for Borderlands 2: Tales from Disputed Territories
between Races and Cultures (please forward widely)

I am currently seeking personal stories and visual art on the theme of
FAMILY for the upcoming issue of my compilation zine about mixed-race,
bicultural and transracial adoptee identities.

Stories should be
non-fiction and no more than 800 words. No poetry please.

Visual art
should be black and white and replicate well in a copy machine (minimal
grey tones).

Submissions are not due until JUNE 1st, 2008, but please
don’t wait to start writing! Your stories are valuable, and it’s time to
bring our often neglected cross-cultural and multi-racial experiences from
margin to center by telling our own stories!

Send submissions to oxette@riseup.net

New Study on Adoptees Released on NPR

I’m actually not going to title this one the way NPR did because I feel the title was a bit misleading.  It was titled “Adopted Teens Face Higher Risk for ADHD.”  Which they contradict very quickly in the article when they state “the first study of its kind has found that most are psychologically healthy, though they’re at “slightly increased risk” for behavioral problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or oppositional defiant disorder.”

“Slightly increased risk, and yet their title reads “Higher Risk.”

The NPR show that this piece appeared in was Morning Edition.  Please see the hyperlink below to read the text directly from their website.  GS.

Adopted Teens Face Higher Risk for ADHD

by Michelle Trudeau

Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · People have wondered for a long time whether children who were adopted in infancy are at increased risk for psychological problems. Now, the first study of its kind has found that most are psychologically healthy, though they’re at “slightly increased risk” for behavioral problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or oppositional defiant disorder.

More than just “a negative teenager,” a child with ODD is persistently hostile and disobedient.

“These are kids who argue with their parents, who refuse to follow through on chores, maybe argue with their teachers, blame other people for their own mistakes,” says Margaret Keyes, a University of Minnesota research psychologist who led the study. The findings were published this month in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Keyes and her research team studied 692 adolescents who had been adopted before age 2. When Keyes tested them, they were roughly 15 years old. Researchers conducted in-depth psychological interviews to check them for depression, anxiety, ADHD and ODD. For comparison, Keyes and colleagues also interviewed a control group of teenagers raised by their biological parents.

“We found that most of the adolescents — adopted and non-adopted — were overwhelmingly psychologically healthy,” Keyes says.

But Keyes also found what she calls “an adoption effect.” “There’s a slightly increased risk for the adopted kids, especially [for] ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder,” she says.

Approximately seven out of every 100 non-adopted teens had a diagnosis of ADHD, a number that rose to 14 or 15 for adopted youngsters. Similarly, the risk of ODD was nearly doubled.

But Keyes and her colleagues found the adopted youths had no increased risk for depression, anxiety or a form of serious delinquency that involves aggression and vandalism.

David Brodzinsky, a Rutgers University professor emeritus and a leader in the field of adoption research, says he’s not surprised that some psychological problems were more common in a group of adopted children.

“Many of the serious problems associated with adoption have less to do with adoption, per se, than with what happens before adoption,” says Brodzinsky.

Genetic factors, the health of the biological parents, possible exposure to alcohol or drugs in utero — these “before factors” affect the mental health of a child.

In fact, Brodzinsky’s own research finds that adopting parents are a special breed: highly motivated, better educated and better off financially than parents who do not adopt. Keyes adds that adopting parents were also more likely to get help from mental health professionals for their adopted child when behavioral problems arose.

The study revealed another provocative finding: Adopted children born in another country — most in this study were from South Korea — were slightly less likely to have ADHD than adopted children born in the United States. It’s not clear why.

The United States has more than 1.5 million adopted children under age 18, a number that is growing by more than 100,000 every year.

New KAD Documentary Screens in Boston

I’m pleased to announce a film screening by Third Cat Productions entitled
“Going Home,” featuring Bostonian Jason Hoffman as he documents his
experience in Korea as a Korean Adoptee and a search for his roots.

The first screening is on May 16th 12:00pm Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts.  The second
screening is on May 18th at 5:30pm at Emerson College 120 Boylston st. room 233.

For more information on the film please go to their website:
www.thirdcatproductions.com, or email them at:
info@thirdcatproductions.com.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon Airs on PBS

I just wanted to let all of you know that PBS will be showing “Tie  a Yellow Ribbon,” starting today.   It may depend on your area, so check your local PBS station.

Here’s some more information on the film, and their website.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon Website

” The feature-length narrative film TIE A YELLOW RIBBON gives a rare view into the emotionally complex interior of young Asian American women, featuring a Korean
adoptee who needs to come to terms with her damaged past. Joy Dietrich won the
Director Prize at CineVegas Film Festival for TIE A YELLOW RIBBON, her first feature
film.”

Vietnam Ends Adoptions With US

Due to US allegations of corruption, Vietnam has decided to end its adoption program with the US.  This does not however mean that adoptions already in process will be halted.  Adoptions from Vietnam to the US will formally be ended on July 1st of this year.  Here’s an article that was sent out courtesy of the K@W list.

——–

Vietnam to end adoption program with US after report
By VU TIEN HONG

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is ending a child adoption agreement
with the United States after being accused of allowing baby-selling
and corruption, officials said Monday.

The agreement was being considered for renewal but the two sides
remained far apart over revisions, said Vu Duc Long, director of
Vietnam’s International Adoption Agency. The agreement is due to
expire on Sept. 1.

In a letter sent to the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi on Friday, Vietnam said
it will stop taking adoption applications from American families
after July 1 but will continue to process applications of families
who are matched with babies before July 1.

The decision was made following a report from the U.S. Embassy in
Hanoi that was first obtained by The Associated Press, alleging
pervasive corruption and baby-selling in Vietnam’s adoption system.

The report lists cases in which infants were sold or birth mothers
were pressured to give up their babies. In some other cases it
describes brokers going to villages in search for babies who could be
possibly put up for adoption.

It also says some American adoption agencies have been paying
orphanage directors for referrals, and some others have bribed
orphanage officials by taking them on shopping sprees and junkets to
the United States in return for a flow of babies.

In an angry response, Vietnamese officials denied charges, calling
the U.S. side’s allegations “unfair.”

“They can say whatever they want, but we are not going to renew it,”
Long said.

The decision also will lead to the closure of 42 U.S. adoption
agencies operating in Vietnam, Long said.

The U.S. Embassy says it respects Hanoi’s latest decision but is
confident about the accuracy of the report.

“The government of Vietnam has made their own decision, but we
believe that our report speaks for itself,” said the U.S. Embassy’s
spokeswoman, Angela Aggeler.

U.S. Embassy officials began raising questions last year after their
routine investigations turned up widespread inconsistencies in
adoption paperwork.

They also noticed a suspicious surge in the number of babies listed
as abandoned on adoption papers. That makes it impossible to confirm
the infants were genuine orphans, or that their parents had knowingly
put them up for adoption, as required by U.S. law.

In adoptions before 2003, 20 percent were abandoned babies. Since
they resumed under tighter rules, that has risen to 85 percent, the
embassy report says.

Vietnam suspended all adoptions with foreign countries in 2003 as
part of its efforts to improve the legal system by centralizing
adoption to prevent rampant corruption. A bilateral agreement between
the U.S. and Vietnam was resumed in 2005.

Since then adoptions from Vietnam have boomed. Americans — including
actress Angelina Jolie — adopted more than 1,200 Vietnamese children
over the 18 months ending March 31. In 2007, adoptions surged more
than 400 percent from a year earlier, with 828 Vietnamese children
adopted by American families.

While China remains the most popular overseas country for adoptions,
a growing number of Americans had been looking to Vietnam, which has
had fewer restrictions. The wait for adoption approval also has
gotten longer in China after authorities there tightened rules.

Adoption Headlines

There’s a lot of Adoptee News Headlines to check out. So below, I’ve compiled a few for you to stay up on.

1) I’m proud to say that a friend of mine Lee Herrick, who is a KAD poet was featured in the April 2008 issues of KoreAm. There’s no hyperlink for now, but be sure to pick up a copy or subscribe!

2) While adoptions from Vietnam continue to grow, trafficking and illegal selling of babies is occurring in Vietnam today. The US Embassy released a report to AP detailing the corruption and fraud that has been taking place in Vietnamese adoptions. Here is the article.

3) A Korean family adopted an Indonesian girl, but has been facing quite a bit of opposition from their church and community members. They say she has suffered from teasing which includes the color of her skin which some of her peers have used in calling her “African.” There’s also an interesting chart toward the bottom of the article detailing International and Domestic Korean adoption since 2002. Here’s the link.

4) I’m attempting to bring Adoptee artists into the spotlight, so I hope you’ll take a look at Mayda Miller. She’s a Korean adoptee out of St. Paul Minnesota. With a great voice and tracks that aim to “Break your stereo, Break your stereotype!” I think you’ll enjoy Miller’s music. Check her out on Myspace.

The New Model Minorities

Since Newsweek’s infamous model minority article in the early 70’s, Asian Americans continue to grapple with stereotypical portrayals through technology, and the math and sciences.

Surprisingly not much has changed since then, and we continue to see mainstream news outlets harping on the very divisive stereotype that was historically used to uphold racial hierarchies favoring Asians over Blacks.  This same socio-political tool is employed to disqualify Asian Americans from affirmative action to colleges across the country despite wide disparities between Asian ethnic groups, and of course the fact that many don’t share the same privileges or resources as others.

So I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that the New York Times released a very eerie front page article that brings back memories of Newsweek in the 1970s.  The new model minority however, are Koreans.  Reporting from an elite high school, Daewon prep school is painted as an elite school machine-pumping a majority of its graduating class to elite universities across the US.

The article portrays these students to be unwavering in their commitment to academic excellence and their pursuit of admission to the top universities in the US.  From dormitory surveillance cameras monitoring student study habits, to the students found near windows trying to stay awake while studying, this article continues to perpetuate this very model minority myth.

It’s fitting that this past weekend the new Harold and Kumar movie was released chronicling a new saga in Asian American roles that are seen in popular culture.  The movie, while highly known as a stoner flick, pushes the boundaries and enables Asian Americans to be seen beyond the oppressive  confines of the Model Minority stereotype.

While largely seen as a “positive” stereotype to many, the Model Minority Myth has historically been used as a socio-political wedge between Asians and other people of color, and puts unfair expectations and standards on many Asian Americans.  Although this article does seem complimentary to a country that sends more students of every level to the US than any other country, we have to be concerned with the consequences of painting such a picture for those Korean/Asian Americans in the US.  -GS

—

April 27, 2008

Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills

By SAM DILLON

SEOUL, South Korea — It is 10:30 p.m. and students at the elite Daewon prep school here are cramming in a study hall that ends a 15-hour school day. A window is propped open so the evening chill can keep them awake. One teenager studies standing upright at his desk to keep from dozing.

Kim Hyun-kyung, who has accumulated nearly perfect scores on her SATs, is multitasking to prepare for physics, chemistry and history exams.

“I can’t let myself waste even a second,” said Ms. Kim, who dreams of attending Harvard, Yale or another brand-name American college. And she has a good shot. This spring, as in previous years, all but a few of the 133 graduates from Daewon Foreign Language High School who applied to selective American universities won admission.

It is a success rate that American parents may well envy, especially now, as many students are swallowing rejection from favorite universities at the close of an insanely selective college application season.

“Going to U.S. universities has become like a huge fad in Korean society, and the Ivy League names — Harvard, Yale, Princeton — have really struck a nerve,” said Victoria Kim, who attended Daewon and graduated from Harvard last June.

Daewon has one major Korean rival, the Minjok Leadership Academy, three hours’ drive east of Seoul, which also has a spectacular record of admission to Ivy League colleges.

How do they do it? Their formula is relatively simple. They take South Korea’s top-scoring middle school students, put those who aspire to an American university in English-language classes, taught by Korean and highly paid American and other foreign teachers, emphasize composition and other skills crucial to success on the SATs and college admissions essays, and — especially this — urge them on to unceasing study.

Both schools seem to be rethinking their grueling regimen, at least a bit. Minjok, a boarding school, has turned off dormitory surveillance cameras previously used to ensure that students did not doze in late-night study sessions. Daewon is ending its school day earlier for freshmen. Its founder, Lee Won-hee, worried in an interview that while Daewon was turning out high-scoring students, it might be falling short in educating them as responsible citizens.

“American schools may do a better job at that,” Dr. Lee said.

Still, the schools are highly rigorous. Both supplement South Korea’s required, lecture-based national curriculum with Western-style discussion classes. Their academic year is more than a month longer than at American high schools. Daewon, which costs about $5,000 per year to attend, requires two foreign languages besides English. Minjok, where tuition, board and other expenses top $15,000, offers Advanced Placement courses and research projects.

And, oh yes. Both schools suppress teenage romance as a waste of time.

“What are you doing holding hands?” a Daewon administrator scolded an adolescent couple recently, according to his aides. “You should be studying!”

Students do not seem to complain. Park Yeshong, one of Kim Hyun-kyung’s classmates, said attractions tended to fade during hundreds of hours of close-quarters study. “We know each other too well to fall in love,” she said. Many American educators would kill to have such disciplined pupils.

Both schools reserve admission for highly motivated students; the application process resembles that at many American colleges, where students are judged on their grade-point averages, as well as their performance on special tests and in interviews.

“Even my worst students are great,” said Joseph Foster, a Williams College graduate who teaches writing at Daewon. “They’re professionals; if I teach them, they’ll learn it. I get e-mails at 2 a.m. I’ll respond and go to bed. When I get up, I’ll find a follow-up question mailed at 5 a.m.”

South Korea is not the only country sending more students to the United States, but it seems to be a special case. Some 103,000 Korean students study at American schools of all levels, more than from any other country, according to American government statistics. In higher education, only India and China, with populations more than 20 times that of South Korea’s, send more students.

“Preparing to get to the best American universities has become something of a national obsession in Korea,” said Alexander Vershbow, the American ambassador to South Korea.

Korean applications to Harvard alone have tripled, to 213 this spring, up from 66 in 2003, said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions. Harvard has 37 Korean undergraduates, more than from any foreign country except Canada and Britain. Harvard, Yale and Princeton have a total of 103 Korean undergraduates; 34 graduated from Daewon or Minjok.

This year, Daewon and Minjok graduates are heading to universities like Stanford, Chicago, Duke and seven of the eight Ivy League universities — but not to Harvard. Instead, Harvard accepted four Korean students from three other prep schools.

“That was certainly not any statement” about the Daewon and Minjok schools, Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “We’re alert to getting kids from schools where we haven’t had them before, but we’d never reject an applicant simply because he or she came from a school with a history of sending students to Harvard.”

South Korea’s academic year starts in March, so the 2008 class of Daewon’s Global Leadership Program, which prepares students for study at foreign universities, graduated in February.

One graduate was Kim Soo-yeon, 19, who was accepted by Princeton this month. Daewon parents tend to be wealthy doctors, lawyers or university professors. Ms. Kim’s father is a top official in the Korean Olympic Committee.

Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.

“Most Korean mothers want their children to get 100 on all the tests in all the subjects,” Ms. Kim’s mother said.

Ms. Kim’s highest aspiration was to attend a top Korean university, until she read a book by a Korean student at Harvard about American universities. Immediately she put up a sign in her bedroom: “I’m going to an Ivy League!”

Even while at Daewon, Ms. Kim, like thousands of Korean students, took weekend classes in English, physics and other subjects at private academies, raising her SAT scores by hundreds of points. “I just love to do well on the tests,” she said.

As bright as she is, she was just one great student among many, said Eric Cho, Daewon’s college counselor. Sitting at his computer terminal at the school, perched on a craggy eastern hilltop overlooking the Seoul skyline, Mr. Cho scrolled through the class of 2008’s academic records.

Their average combined SAT score was 2203 out of 2400. By comparison, the average combined score at Phillips Exeter, the New Hampshire boarding school, is 2085. Sixty-seven Daewon graduates had perfect 800 math scores.

Kim Hyun-kyung, 17, scored perfect 800s on the SAT verbal and math tests, and 790 in writing. She is scheduled to take nine Advanced Placement tests next month, in calculus, physics, chemistry, European history and five other subjects. One challenge: she has taken none of these courses. Instead, she is teaching herself in between classes at Daewon, buying and devouring textbooks.

So she is busy. She rises at 6 a.m. and heads for her school bus at 6:50. Arriving at Daewon, she grabs a broom to help classmates clean her classroom. Between 8 and noon, she hears Korean instructors teach supply and demand in economics, Korean soils in geography and classical poets in Korean literature.

At lunch she joins other raucous students, all, like her, wearing blue blazers, in a chow line serving beans and rice, fried dumpling and pickled turnip, which she eats with girlfriends. Boys, who sit elsewhere, wolf their food and race to a dirt lot for a 10-minute pickup soccer game before afternoon classes.

Kim Hyun-kyung joins other girls at a hallway sink to brush her teeth before reporting to French literature, French culture and English grammar classes, taught by Korean instructors. At 3:20, her English language classes begin. This day, they include English literature, taught by Mani Tadayon, a polyglot graduate of the University of California at Berkeley who was born in Iran, and government and politics, taught by Hugh Quigley, a former Wall Street lawyer.

Evening study hall begins at 7:45. She piles up textbooks on an adjoining desk, where they glare at her like a to-do list. Classmates sling backpacks over seats, prop a window open and start cramming. Three hours later, the floor is littered with empty juice cartons and water bottles. One girl has nodded out, head on desk. At 10:50 a tone sounds, and Ms. Kim heads for a bus that will wend its way through Seoul’s towering high-rise canyons to her home, south of the Han River.

“I feel proud that I’ve endured another day,” she said.

The schedule at the Minjok academy, on a rural campus of tile-roofed buildings in forested hills, appears even more daunting. Students rise at 6 for martial arts, and thereafter, wearing full-sleeved, gray-and-black robes, plunge into a day of relentless study that ends just before midnight, when they may sleep.

But most keep cramming until 2 a.m., when dorm lights are switched off, said Gang Min-ho, a senior. Even then some students turn on lanterns and keep going, Mr. Gang said. “Basically we lead very tired lives,” he said.

Students sometimes report for classes so exhausted that Alexander Ganse, a German who teaches European history, said he asked, “Did you go to bed at all last night?”

“But we’re not only nerds!” interrupted Choi Jung-yun, who grew up in San Diego. Minjok students play sports, take part in many clubs and even have a rock band, she said. Ambassador Vershbow, who plays the drums, confirmed that with photographs that showed him jamming with Minjok’s rockers during a visit to the school last year.

There are other hints of slackening. A banner once hung on a Minjok building. “This school is a paradise for those who want to study and a hell for those who do not,” it read. But it was taken down after faculty members deemed it too harsh, said Son Eun-ju, director of counseling.