Competition for Hong Kong public university places hots up as DSE exam results announced
Number of candidates making the cut for university places up on last year, with one star student achieving results never seen before in the city
Hong Kong youngsters hoping to pursue a degree at the city’s public universities will face tougher competition this year, as more candidates made the cut for undergraduate places than last year.
Among the 50,447 full-day school candidates getting their Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) results slips on Wednesday were six boys and three girls who got the top grade of 5** for seven or more subjects. There were six of these top scorers in total last year.
This year’s top performer got 5** for eight subjects and an extended module in maths, a feat never achieved before, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) said on Tuesday as it revealed the highlights from this year’s main college entrance exam.
Just over 42 per cent – or 21,264 of these students – made the cut for the 15,000 places in publicly funded degree programmes, up from 20,885 last year, when there were a few hundred more students who took the exam.
This meant they got at least a score of three for Chinese and English, and two for maths and liberal studies, on the DSE’s seven-level grading scale.
But Dr So Kwok-sang, secretary general of the HKEAA, cautioned students against thinking that grades were all that mattered.
“When universities consider admissions, they will consider the respective programme requirements and also the other attributes, qualifications and achievements of the candidate in addition to DSE results,” he said.