A drama about wealthy families ruthlessly competing over their children’s academic achievements has gripped South Korea and apparently fuelled a trend for using cram schools or to even seek out mysterious university “fixers” to gain access to the country’s elite colleges.

SKY Castle, a tragi-comic miniseries, has replaced the usual romantic hits of South Korean cable TV with the tale of exam stress and the bitter rivalry between super-rich “tiger moms” who use their children’s success at school in a wily game of one-upmanship to climb further up the social ladder.

On the surface, the four main families are already the epitome of success. Living in the exclusive estates peppering the hills around Seoul, the wives are manicured to perfection and the husbands have risen to the top of their careers as surgeons or businessmen.

The cutthroat education system, however, still offers the characters an outlet through which to assert their dominance over each other.

The acronym SKY is built out of the names of South Korea’s top three universities – Seoul National, Korea university and Yonsei – which in real life promise their graduates the social standing and connections to rise to the top of Asia’s fourth largest economy.