She went to school at 6:30 in the morning and home at late at night, preparing for school exams with her textbooks and watching programs on the Educational Broadcasting System until midnight.

But this is not just any story about how hard slog brought an underprivileged girl to a top university. It is the story of Emilie Debacker (19), born to a Belgian father and American mother. A Daeil Foreign Language High School student, she lived the busy and stressful life of the average Korean high school student, and now she is waiting for the result of her application to Havard University. "When I look back, the three years in high school were a kind of training in self-discipline," she recalls in fluent Korean. "I feel I can do everything now it's over."

Emilie came to Korea six years ago, when her father started working at a Korean branch of the Universal Peace Federation. Emily went to Gochang Girl's Middle School in North Jeolla Province. "My father said, 'When in Korea, do as the Koreans do,' so I had to go there with my mom. My mother also insisted on living in the countryside because she wanted to live a traditional life in Korea. Thanks to my parents, I experienced much of traditional and rural life there."

But it wasn't easy. Emilie had just learned Korean for a year in Seoul and she couldn't understand the other girls' dialect, and the writing on the blackboards seemed to her like code.

In her first exam, she scored poorly. That night, she announced to her family, "I'm going to improve my score rather than go back to America." She started memorizing textbooks till 10 p.m. every night. She went to a crammer for math studies. After one semester, her score started improving. Ranked 30th in the first exam, she graduated middle school ranked 17th. Her next goal was entering a foreign-language high school.

"Most foreign-language high schools turned down my application by saying 'There's no room for another student.' or 'Foreigners aren't allowed to enter this school.' But Daeil Foreign Language High School allowed me to enter." Life in a foreign language high school brought more frustration. Fierce competition among students made her feel she couldn't bear it and wanted to go America after all.

"One day, a classmate started crying when she scored 96 out of 100. I had say to myself, 'I can handle this semester. I can do this until that semester.'"

As she became a high-school senior, the atmosphere got frostier by the day. Classmates studied hard. Friends annoyed her by saying, 'I studied till 4 o'clock in the morning.' But Emily also has good memories. She enjoyed having snacks after classes and singing karaoke with friends. She made the first English debate class in her school and won the first prize in a national debating contest.

A speaker of four languages -- English, French, Portuguese and Korean -- now wants to major in international relations. She wants to contribute to Korea-U.S. and inter-Korean relations. Does she want to come back Korea? "Sure. My senior year at high school made what I am now. Above all, I'm happy here in Korea. I want to see my classmates and neighbors in Gochang, too." Just an ordinary young high school graduate, then.

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