8 Hong Kong students bag perfect scores in university entrance exams, but number of those hitting minimum qualifying mark drops
- The elite pupils were among 47,891 candidates who sat for the DSE paper between April 22 and May 14
- Five male students and three females scored a perfect 5** across the exam’s seven subjects
Eight students have achieved perfect scores in the Hong Kong university entrance examinations – more than in each of the previous two years – but the number of candidates attaining the minimum qualifying mark has dropped.
Five male and three female students scored a perfect 5** across seven subjects. Of those, four candidates, two boys and two girls, also earned a 5** for an extended mathematics module elective. Thirteen students obtained 5** across six subjects while 38 earned 5** in five subjects.
In 2021 and 2020, seven top-scorers hit the 5** mark on the DSE exam’s seven-level grading scale.
Candidates will find out their results on Wednesday.
A total of 17,269 secondary school students, or 41.9 per cent, achieved the minimum mark, also known as the “3322+2” requirement, scoring at least a level 3 in both Chinese and English language and at least a 2 in maths, liberal studies and an elective, for locally funded undergraduate programmes. This figure was slightly lower than last year’s 17,733 or 42.9 per cent.
They will now compete for about 13,000 subsidised first-year places via the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (Jupas), a unified mechanism for applying for full-time undergraduate courses, meaning a ratio of 1.4 students to one slot.