What is the drop out rate of people who start Tae Kwon Do?

Answer 1

While there is no consistent rate world-wide, it would depend on many factors, such as the quality of the school and teachers, the location, as well as the current localeconomy.

However,based on the progressive difficulty of trainingthrough higher rank levels, the commitment required to complete each level, and the typical dedication of the average student, a reasonable estimate might be as follows:

Out of every 100 people who join, about 5% would quit after their first promotion test (1 to 3 months of training); another 10% would drop out before reaching the middle ranks (4 months to 1 year); the next 25 % would likely leave training some time during the middle ranks (1 to 2 year mark), and 40% will quit in the final color belt grades for a total of about 90% drop out rate before reaching the Black Belt.

Of the 10% that reach 1st Degree Black Belt, only about 5% will go on to 2nd Degree, 3% will reach 3rd Degree, and perhaps 1 or 2% of the initial 100 students will make 4th Degree. In the 1960's and 70's, these percentages might have been slightly lower when you could count the number of 4th Degree Masters outside of Korean birthone hand,but in recent times the number of students sticking around to the higher color belt ranks, Black Belt and even Master levels is gradually increasing, but the overall proportions are probably fairly consistent since there are considerably more Taekwondo schools, and more students joining annually.

Some Taekwondo schools have training that is very intense and realistic for self defense, and will likely attract fewer students, and lose more before long. Many modern schools have developed better motivational and retention programs that keep dedicated students around longer.

Then there are a growing majority of schools that focus on sports, or provide a kid friendly, family fun activity that is not very demanding, and place top priority on keeping the students happy, and not wanting to drop out - even at the expense of teaching less than quality skills. Thislast group ofschools are often refereed to as "belt factories" and "McDojangs" that are an assembly line of poorly trained students whoare promoted simply for showing to classes and paying test fees, andlater become the unqualified instructors of a perpetually deteriorating process.