Of the students who received offers through Hong Kong’s Joint University Programme Admission System (Jupas) this year, about 83 per cent got a spot in one of their top three programme choices, down from 87.46 per cent last year.
Overall, about 37 per cent of Jupas applicants secured a place in local tertiary institutions this year, a slight decrease from last year.
These percentage decreases are related to fiercer competition.
This year, Jupas applications rose by 9 per cent, from 39,634 to 43,269, leading to a 3.27 percentage point drop in the proportion of students securing tertiary education places.
In absolute numbers, 15,808 applicants were offered spots in local universities or a subsidised diploma course through Jupas this year – a slight increase from the 15,776 who secured places last year.
Eighteen-year-old Abby Woo Ka-lam, who got an offer to the integrated bachelor of business administration programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), said she observed this heightened competitiveness based on social media posts from other DSE candidates.
“This year’s competition was much tougher than before. Many programmes now require higher DSE [Diploma of Secondary Education] scores, even for subjects that were previously considered easier to get into,” the 18-year-old said.
“I saw many ... posted on their social media, mainly talking about [how] their mark is higher than [the] 2024 mean score but still can’t get into the course.”
CUHK announced that it had attracted the highest number of DSE top scorers, all of whom chose to enrol in its medicine programme.
Some students expressed concern that this year’s DSE exams were more competitive because of an increase in non-local private candidates from mainland China.
Out of the 55,489 candidates who took the DSE this year, 960 were non-local private candidates, up from 549 last year and 238 in 2023.
Officials did not reveal how many of these non-local candidates were from across the border.
But according to an article published in April by Professor Chan Cheuk-hay, president of the Hong Kong College of Technology, the influx of mainland Chinese private candidates has contributed to the rise in non-local exam takers this year.
This year’s overall number of candidates signed up for the DSE increased by 10 per cent from 50,591 last year.
Even though non-local students hold DSE results, they cannot apply for university places through Jupas. They compete with holders of other qualifications – such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) or local sub-degrees – for admission to Hong Kong universities.
Jaskirat Singh, a student from Po Leung Kuk Ngan Po Ling College, said stress levels were higher this year even though many of his peers got their top choices in the Band A category.
“This year was quite anxious for local students due to the increasing number of students from the mainland taking the DSE exams, and especially after the difficult math paper,” the 18-year-old said.
Singh will study a five-year double degree for a bachelor of business administration (law) and bachelor of laws at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
He explained that this double degree would open up more options for his career path since he could work in law or finance. He added that studying in Hong Kong would be a “good choice” for its reputable universities and multicultural campus environment.
“HKU’s emphasis on international law is also a big advantage, as I may move abroad and practise law overseas in the future,” he said.
Flora Ng received an offer from her Band A2 choice, HKU’s bachelor of arts programme.
“It was a safe choice and something I genuinely wanted to study, so I’m quite satisfied,” the 18-year-old said, adding that she had not been very concerned about competition from mainland Chinese candidates.
“I’m not particularly worried about mainland students competing with me, as their performance tends to fall in the mid to lower range, especially in English,” she explained.
“In my opinion, they pose more of a challenge to middle- or lower-ranked local students. At the higher level, competition is already intense among top-performing locals.”
Students received their university offers from 9am on Wednesday via the Jupas website or SMS.
Hong Kong’s eight public universities offer a total of 15,000 first-year, first-degree places, with 79 per cent allocated through the Jupas system. The remaining places are filled through non-Jupas admission routes.
