Coming from a hot country helps less than you would expect, because the thing that catches people is not the temperature — it is the humidity combined with a small room under a flat roof.

Seoul summer runs roughly late June to early September: 30 to 35 degrees with humidity often above 80 percent, plus 장마 (monsoon) for a few weeks where it rains heavily and the air does not dry out. Malaysia is hot, but Seoul's July is a different kind of unpleasant — hot, wet air with no breeze, in a concrete building.

Why the top floor specifically: flat concrete roofs absorb sun all day and radiate it down into the top-floor rooms through the evening. The room is often several degrees warmer than the floors below and stays warm long after dark.

What makes it fine or not fine, in one question: **is the aircon in your room, and is it included?** With a proper in-room aircon unit and no extra charge, the top floor is genuinely fine and you get the better windows and less corridor noise. Without it, or with pay-per-use cooling, the top floor in August is the worst room in the building.

So ask: "에어컨 방에 있어요? 따로 돈 내요?" — is the aircon in the room, do I pay extra.

The other side of the trade, which is real: top floors are quieter (no footsteps above), get better light and ventilation, and are noticeably better in winter because heat rises. If you are arriving for a spring or autumn term and leaving before July, the summer question is moot and the top floor is the better room.

So the actual answer depends on your dates. Arriving in March and leaving in December, take the top floor with aircon. Staying through July and August with no in-room aircon, take a lower floor.