Koreans may think the US is going down the crapper...

...but they still desparately want to get into our best schools. An article in the NYTimes looks at two elite prep schools in Korea designed to get the brightest Korean students into Ivy League and other selective US schools. The Korean education system is notorious for slave driving kids and demanding unceasing studying, but these places really take it to a new level:

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.

Also from the article:

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.

(Emphasis is mine.) I think a lot of folks in the US, when they see American public schools with a 50 percent drop out rate, social promotion, and other tremendous problems, turn to places like Korea, which are seen as models of societies that truly value and promote education. Well, surprise, surprise: Many Koreans strongly disapprove of the education system that emphasizes rote memorization and unceasing study and wish they could get their kids out of it. Pretty much every parent I've talked to while I've been here disapproves of the sytem, but resigns themselves to putting their kids through it, because if they don't, the other parents will, and those kids will have the advantage when it comes to schools, jobs, and marriage prospects. These elite schools presented in the Times article are just examples of what happens to the lucky ones. Again, from the article:

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.

"Tired" is one adjective to describe their lives; I could think of several others.