Seoul National University, one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, laid out a series of new admission processes Thursday, raising concerns of causing chaos in the nation’s college admission system.

Among the changes, the state-run university is considering accepting applications from high school graduates who are on the humanities track for admission to its colleges of medicine and dentistry starting from 2015. 

Experts predicted that foreign language schools and international schools will gain further popularity as the door to the medical and dental colleges opens to top-tier students at those high schools.

The university also said it would give more weight to scores from the College Scholastic Ability Test, the nation’s college admission test.

“The increased importance of the college admission test could be advantageous to those top students at foreign language schools and international schools,” said an official from an education research institute.

In addition, SNU will transfer to a different admissions bracket. Every college belongs to one of three categories (ga, na and da, similar to Group A, B and C) and students are allowed to apply for only one university in each group.

Each group places a different weight on requirements including high school grades, essay and CSAT scores.

SNU transferred from the second group to the first, which will expedite admission acceptance notification for the applicants, according to a university official.

Universities that currently belong to the first group are expected to transfer to different categories as the nation’s top university could snatch up the most promising students.

Officials from Yonsei University and Korea University said they are in discussion on changing their admissions category.

By Kim Young-won  (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)