City University of Hong Kong relaxes HKDSE student entry requirements

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The university will consider admitting students who receive lower marks in core subjects

Joanne Ma |
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Students attend a talk about the new admissions changes at CityU.

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) said on Saturday that it will consider applications from students who don’t attain the minimum Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) scores of “3322+33”.

These scores refer to a level 3 score in Chinese and English, a Level 2 in Mathematics and Liberal Studies, and Level 3 in two elective subjects.

As of 2019, if students fail to meet the requirement by one level in any of these subjects but have an average of level 5* across their other five subjects, CityU will still consider their applications. Not all students were happy with the new, relaxed rules.

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“They should stick with the original minimum requirements. University students should be well-rounded,” said Kin Wan, 18, Chinese University. “For example, EMI [English as a medium of instruction] schools shouldn’t neglect Chinese just because most of their subjects are taught in English.”

“I don’t think this will make a huge difference because getting an average of 5* in all other five subjects is very difficult as well,” said Ngai Tsz-kuen, 18, who plans to retake her HKDSE exams next year.

In September, the Faculties of Engineering and Science at CUHK announced that they would still consider the applications of students who failed to secure “3322+33”, provided that they had scored at least 5* in three Stem subjects.

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Soon after, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Hong Kong Polytechnic University announced that they too would relax their admission requirements.

The University of Hong Kong, however, told Young Post that it has “no plan to change the 3322+33 entrance requirement for HKDSE students”, but added that it would consider those students who performed well overall, but who failed to meet the requirement by a very small margin.

Edited by Charlotte Ames-Ettridge

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