The September mock exam falls on 2 September 2026. Applications for early admission (susi) for the 2027 entry year open on 7 September and close on 11 September, with each university accepting for at least three days inside that window. Yet the score report for the September mock is released on 29 September. Line those dates up and the conclusion is unavoidable: the score report arrives after the applications have already been filed. This repeats every year, and this year's Year 12 cohort is no exception. What a student writes down on the evening of 2 September is therefore what decides how the six applications are allocated.

Sit it on 2 September, apply on 7 September

Taking the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation's published plan for the 2027 September mock exam at face value: the exam is on 2 September, the question-objection window runs 2–5 September, and scores are notified on 29 September. Under the Korean Council for University Education's admissions framework, susi applications run from 7 to 11 September, and the CSAT itself is on 19 November. That leaves five days between the exam and the opening of applications, and eighteen days between the application deadline and the score notification. For those eighteen days, decisions must be made on evidence that has not yet been published.

Which makes self-marking the only evidence there is

The only material available for the decision is the answers a student copied down in the exam hall and the self-marked result from that evening. And every year students come out having marked the paper only with ticks in the margin. Once the answer sheet is handed in, the student's own answers are gone. Copying your answers onto the question paper during each break is the whole of the preparation, and the precondition for everything that follows. Without it, the September mock supplies no information at all for the application decision.

What belongs on the self-marking sheet is raw scores, not grades

The grade boundaries circulating on the evening of the exam are estimates produced by test-prep companies. Actual grades are set from the standardised score distribution across all candidates, so nothing is fixed until notification. What has to be recorded, then, is the raw score per subject, the numbers of the questions missed, and the questions guessed correctly. A raw score can be reapplied later to the real grade boundaries when they are published; a grade written down on its own leaves nothing to recover. Understanding why standardised scores, percentiles and grades tell different stories makes it obvious why this record matters.

There is a separate reason to flag the questions that were guessed. Luck is baked into a self-marked raw score, and it will not repeat in November. If more than three questions were guessed correctly in Korean or Mathematics, treat that subject's raw score as sitting above the student's real level when setting the application band. Conversely, questions lost to careless error on material the student knows are recoverable over the remaining eleven weeks, so they do not belong in the pessimistic scenario.

Minimum CSAT requirements are not settled by September grades

The largest variable in susi is the minimum CSAT requirement. Clearing it on the September mock does not lock it in, and failing to clear it in September does not remove eligibility either. Minimum requirements are judged solely on the CSAT results of 19 November. The September mock only measures where a student stands if the CSAT were sat today. So the question is not "did I clear it in September" but "can this combination be made reliable in the eleven weeks that remain". Working out a condition such as 'two subjects summing to 5' turns on how electives are counted and where the decimals fall.

The September cohort is different again from March and June

Graduates sit the September mock. A student of identical ability can therefore land a grade lower than in the March achievement test. The performance has not fallen; the comparison group has changed. That said, graduate participation in the September mock is still smaller than at the CSAT itself. In other words, a September grade is a rough position, not a ceiling on the CSAT grade. It is weak ground on which to reverse a decision about where to apply.

From 2028 entry the mock moves to August

The oddity of this sequence has been raised for years, and the government has accepted it, announcing a plan to move the mock exam from September to August so that applicants can see their scores before filing. It does not apply to this year's Year 12 students. The existing order stands for this cycle. Worth noting separately: the 2027 September mock is the last sitting that can be taken online; from the June mock of the 2028 cycle, every candidate must sit it at an assigned test centre.

The school record has already stopped

The other pillar of a susi application, the school record, closes on its compilation cut-off date of 31 August. Whatever the September mock produces, nothing in the record changes. So every judgement made after 2 September is about how to divide six applications between a record that is already fixed and a CSAT result that is not yet determined. Knowing what the cut-off date and the 12 September release date mean makes it clear what can and cannot still be asked of the school.

In order — 2 to 11 September

During the exam on 2 September, copy your answers onto the question paper at every break. That evening, tabulate raw scores by subject and the questions missed. From 3 to 5 September, map those raw scores onto last year's actual grade boundaries and build two scenarios, the worst case and the best case. By the 6th, settle the allocation of the six applications; between the 7th and the 11th, check each university's own window and closing time and file. The score report comes on the 29th. By then it is material for planning the regular (jeongsi) round, not for the susi decision.

One addition: closing times differ by university even on the same date. Some shut at 5 p.m., others at midnight, so build the table around closing times rather than closing dates — that is the final check.