More than 550-thousand test takers across the country are gearing up for the annual College Scholastic Ability Test(CSAT), known in Korean as the Suneung, which takes place on Thursday.

The CSAT will be administered at one-thousand-310 test centers nationwide from 8:40 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. 

On Wednesday, a day before the critical exam, students visited their designated testing sites, picked up their test identification slips and received important information and guidelines, including exam precautions.

According to the Ministry of Education, the number of CSAT applicants rose 31 percent from 2024 to a seven-year high of 554-thousand-174 this year.

Among them, 67-point-one percent are currently enrolled students, 28-point-nine percent are graduates and 4 percent are other applicants, including passers of the Geomjeong Gosi, the Korean equivalent of earning a GED.

The ministry said this year's surge in test takers can be attributed to the unusually high number of babies born in 2007, the year of the Golden Pig, who are now fourth-year high school students.

With the number of medical school recruits also reverting to its baseline level, competition for the top rankings is shaping up to be fiercer than ever.

Attention is also focused on how the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation’s decision to remove tough “killer questions” from the CSAT to make the test more equitable will affect results.