Hongik University Admission Guide: Art & Design Applicants

Hongik in Hongdae: art, design and architecture

Hongik University is a private university in Mapo-gu, Seoul, in the Hongdae neighbourhood that grew up around it and takes its name from it. It is long established and widely recognised in Korea for art, design and architecture, and it also teaches engineering, business and other academic fields.

For an international applicant in a creative discipline, the draw is the concentration of art, design and architecture programs on a central Seoul campus. Most degrees are taught in Korean, with a limited set of English-taught courses — a constraint worth settling before anything else, because it shapes which evidence you need and which programs are realistically open to you.

• Mapo-gu, Seoul — the Hongdae district takes its name from the university
• Art, design and architecture, alongside engineering and business
• Predominantly Korean-taught, with a limited set of English-taught courses

How undergraduate international screening actually works

This is where a lot of general advice about Hongik is wrong, so take it from the university's own published guide.

Hongik's admission process for international undergraduate applicants runs: online application, required document submission, qualification evaluation, screening, admission decision, additional document submission, registration, acceptance letter, course registration, then the start of the semester.

The screening itself is weighted between a document review and an interview. Hongik publishes the weighting, and it is not the same for every field — the interview carries greater weight for Fine Arts applicants (excluding Arts Studies, the theory track) than it does for humanities and sciences, where document review dominates. Note what this does not say: the published undergraduate international screening is built on document review and an interview, not on a portfolio submission. If you have been told a portfolio is the core of Hongik undergraduate admission, verify that against the current official guide for your intake before you plan around it — and check whether your specific department adds any practical requirement of its own.

The eligibility rule that rules many applicants out

Hongik's international undergraduate eligibility is stricter than the common 'non-Korean national who studied abroad' assumption, and it is the first thing to check.

The university's guide states that both the applicant and their parents must have obtained foreign citizenship before the applicant enters high school — with father or mother meaning the biological or adoptive parent, not a stepparent.

That is a hard gate, and it is set by the university. If your family's citizenship history does not fit, this route may not be open to you regardless of your portfolio or grades, and you would need to establish with the admissions office which category, if any, applies to you. Confirm the current rule on the official admissions guide for your intake — eligibility definitions are set per cycle.

Korean proficiency and the exemption route

Because most teaching is in Korean, Korean proficiency is central rather than incidental. Hongik's published guide sets out an exemption from its Korean proficiency test for applicants holding an S-TOPIK (Standard Test of Proficiency in Korean) Level 4 certificate, or who have completed the Level 4 Korean course at the International Institute of Language at Hongik University.

Two things follow. First, Hongik operates its own Korean assessment and its own language institute pathway into that exemption — an internal route that generic guidance omits. Second, the university's undergraduate international guide is built around Korean proficiency; it does not set out English-test requirements the way an English-medium program would. If you are relying on an English test such as IELTS or TOEFL, confirm directly whether your target program accepts it, rather than assuming it does.

IDAS: the graduate route where a portfolio is required

The portfolio requirement at Hongik is real — but it belongs to a specific graduate school, not to the general undergraduate route.

The International Design School for Advanced Studies (IDAS) is Hongik's graduate design school, offering master's and doctoral programs. Its admission page for international applicants explicitly requires a portfolio, specifying an A4 size of roughly twenty pages, free in style, with the applicant's name, major and examination number on the cover. IDAS also sets a Korean-proficiency expectation around TOPIK level 3 or an equivalent English score.

So the practical rule is: if you are applying to IDAS at graduate level, build the portfolio to the published specification. If you are applying to an undergraduate art or design department, work from that department's current undergraduate guide instead.

All of this — the eligibility definition, screening weights, exemption levels, portfolio specification, tuition and each deadline — is set by Hongik and changes between intakes. Verify every one on the official admission pages, and treat any guaranteed-admission claim as a warning sign; no place can be guaranteed.