Lee Boo-jin’s eldest son shares his secret to getting into Seoul National University: “I recommend a complete break”

According to Financial News, Lim Dong-hyun, the eldest son of Hotel Shilla president Lee Boo-jin, recently took the stage as a speaker at an academic performance seminar for his high school juniors.
Maeil Business Newspaper reported on the 2nd that from 1:40 p.m. that day, Lim spoke at the “Whimoon High School pre-freshman grade management seminar” held at a private cram school in Daechi-dong, Seoul. He shared study habits and test-preparation tips that his juniors could use as a reference.
At the event, Lim was said to have shared methods for managing school grades and subject-by-subject strategies for the College Scholastic Ability Test, based on materials he had compiled and his own learning experience.
For the seminar, Lim prepared his own presentation materials titled “A Whimoon Life Without Regrets,” which included problems he had personally solved. The materials reportedly outlined the flow of his three years in high school, tips for both school grades and the CSAT, and advice he wanted to pass on to his juniors.
He also offered detailed tips by subject. For Korean language, he stressed the importance of building the ability to understand passages accurately and repeatedly working through past exam questions. He also recommended keeping an error notebook written like a diary.
Lim advised, “You need to be wary of how the flawed logic of poor questions from private mock exams can stick with you as a habit,” adding, “Wrong thinking habits or letting my own subjective opinions creep in are what lead to incorrect answers.”
He went on to say that for mathematics, students should prepare for problems that require strong reasoning skills while also solving a large volume of questions. “Solving roughly 2,000 problems for each school exam built up my mathematical stamina,” Lim explained, emphasizing again, “You need to solve many problems so that you can instantly categorize killer questions that combine multiple concepts and immediately recall how to approach them.”
Finally, Lim told his juniors, “School grades and the CSAT are not something you choose between; you have to keep a firm grip on both until the end,” and advised, “To stay focused, I recommend a complete break from smartphones and games for all three years of high school.”
Lim, who graduated from Seoul Whimoon Middle School and Whimoon High School, has been admitted to the Department of Economics at Seoul National University for the 2026 academic year. Throughout middle and high school, he consistently ranked at the very top of the liberal arts track, and his math scores were particularly outstanding.
moon@fnnews.com Moon Young-jin Reporter