North London Collegiate School Jeju has produced its best batch of graduates ever, despite uncertainties and difficulties stemming from the coronavirus.

The international school on Jeju Island, with English as its language of instruction, said its latest batch of graduates who left school in June reached the highest level of academic proficiency and college advancement in the school’s history, overcoming challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With a 100 percent pass rate, the class of 2020 got an average score of 39 in the International Baccalaureate diploma program this year, against a global average of 31. More than half of the students scored over 40, and three attained a perfect score of 45.

NLCS Jeju students also gained admission to some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, such as Stanford, Cornell and Columbia universities in the US and Cambridge and Oxford in the UK.

More than 50 students will be attending US colleges, while 45 will be attending in the United Kingdom. The graduating class also won seats at prestigious colleges from other countries, including some of Korea’s top schools.

The school said it was worth noting that its largely native Korean-speaking students outperformed native English speakers on an examination assessed in English.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced NLCS Jeju to close for a number of days, resort to an unfamiliar online learning system and cancel exams amid uncertainties. This proved challenging for both students and the faculty, but students found their inner strength and teachers discovered new heights to their creativity and inspiration, the school said. 

By Ko Jun-tae (ko.juntae@heraldcorp.com)