Online communities are buzzing after the son of Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin, a member of the Samsung Group family, reportedly missed just one question on this year's national college entrance exam, or Suneung.
Park Sun-young, chair of the new Truth and Reconciliation Committee, wrote on Facebook: "Lee’s son, surnamed Lim and a third-year student at Whimoon High School, reportedly got only one question wrong on this year’s Suneung. People say he never lost the top spot in the entire school all through his years at Whimoon Middle School."
Lim, the cousin of Samsung Group chair Lee Jae-yong, reportedly attended Gyeonggi Elementary School and graduated from Whimoon Middle School in 2023 as the second-ranked student in the school. He is now in his final year at Whimoon High School.
Park said she was surprised that Lee Boo-jin chose to educate her son in Korea, unlike many other major conglomerate families who send their children abroad for schooling.
“These days, many well-off families, from celebrities to business elites, rush to put their children in English-only kindergartens and eventually send them abroad. The fact that a Samsung heiress, despite her unlimited resources and connections, kept her son in Korea throughout his school years somehow makes me feel grateful," she wrote.
In 2018, when Lee's son entered middle school, Lee moved from her residence in Itaewon-dong, Yongsan-gu, to Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, a neighborhood in southern Seoul known for its dense cluster of private cram schools, news reports said.
She lived in Daechi-dong throughout Lim’s high school years, before recently moving back to Itaewon, where members of the Samsung family reside.
Only five test-takers achieved a perfect score on this year's Suneung, which was widely considered far more difficult than last year due to the particularly challenging Korean language and English sections, according to the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation.
Lim is expected to have a very high chance of being admitted to Seoul National University’s business school, industry insiders said.
cjh@heraldcorp.com
