How retaking the entrance examination can enhance student quality of life at university

We examined how the experience of retaking the college entrance examination (RCEE), along with levels of resilience and social support, affect individuals’ experience of life change at university, their satisfaction with university life, and how meaningful they perceived their lives to be. We analyzed survey data from 524 university students in Korea (204 men and 320 women; 203 students with RCEE experience and 321 students with no RCEE experience). Results showed that students with RCEE experience underwent a positive life change, and that resilience and good social support led to a synergistic effect of the RCEE experience on the change. Furthermore, the RCEE experience, being resilient, and having a high level of social support resulted in those students having an increase in satisfaction with, and finding greater meaning in, university life. These results are discussed in terms of growth following adversity.