Latest news with #university entrance exams
South China Morning Post
17-07-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's DSE 14 years in: pupils' best subjects, worst performers and top schools
Students in Hong Kong have received their results for the Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (DSE), the local university entrance exams that pupils take after six years of secondary schooling. This year's exams produced 16 students with perfect scores, a record since the DSE's launch in 2012, including the second 'ultimate top scorer', who achieved the highest marks among all top candidates and the first cross-border high-flier. While about 130 students have achieved top marks over the past 14 years, there are also thousands who score 'zero' every year. The Post takes a look at the history and some trivia behind the exams. 1. How did the DSE come to be? Before the DSE was launched in 2012, students took two major university entrance exams: the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) for Form Five pupils and the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE), also known as the A-levels, for Form Seven students. The last HKCEE was held in 2011 and the final HKALE in 2012, the same year as the first DSE exams. This marked a transition from a British-style education system to a new model, commonly known as the '3+3+4' academic structure – three-year junior secondary, three-year senior secondary and four-year university education. The change was also made to lessen students' stress as two exams were consolidated into one. Most DSE subjects are graded on a seven-level scale, from level 1 to 5**. Students who achieve level 5 in a subject are graded as 5, 5* or 5**.
South China Morning Post
17-07-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
DSE versus gaokao: more mainland Chinese pupils opting for Hong Kong system
An increasing number of mainland Chinese pupils are taking Hong Kong's university entrance exams as a step towards more diverse opportunities in higher education, with at least two achieving flying colours as private candidates this year. Leslie Wang Ziqi, 18, a student in Shenzhen, switched from the National Higher Education Entrance Examination or gaokao, mainland China's university entrance exam, to the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE), as a private candidate at the beginning of his final year of senior high school. 'Compared to the gaokao, the DSE is less stressful,' he said, adding that the DSE was also internationally recognised and opened up more diverse pathways for mainland students like him who wanted to pursue their tertiary education and careers abroad. To prepare for the exam, Wang travelled to bookstores in Hong Kong to buy study guides and also used AI tools to help him organise his notes. 'The DSE is a strictly standardised exam, and a lot of study materials are publicly available, so it's very suitable for self-study,' he said. On Wednesday, all candidates received their exam results, with individual subjects graded on a seven-level scale from 1 to 5**. Wang scored an impressive total of 28 marks across his subjects: 5** for compulsory mathematics, 5* for physics, 5* for the extended module of algebra and calculus, 5 for Chinese language and 4 for English language.
South China Morning Post
16-07-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Beyond language barriers: ethnic minority students shine in Hong Kong DSE tests
At Po Leung Kuk Ngan Po Ling College in Hong Kong, Smriti Kedia witnessed her mother burst into tears when her daughter's near-perfect results in Hong Kong's university entrance exams came in. Advertisement 'It was just like a big sigh of relief,' said Kedia, who received four 5** grades and two 5* grades, the top two levels of a seven-level scale of the exams. She was among 55,000 students who received their Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) results on Wednesday. Kedia, 18, who moved to Hong Kong from India at the age of one, is also part of the 8 per cent of non-Chinese Hongkongers, according to the Hong Kong Census. Despite her impressive results, Kedia's journey to success was not smooth sailing. 'In kindergarten and primary school, we definitely learned [Cantonese], but it was very basic and so ...I still found it really difficult to have daily conversations with my classmates or my neighbours,' she said. 'So I never really was able to connect with them.' Advertisement Everything changed for Kedia once she realised in secondary school that she wanted to become a doctor in Hong Kong.
South China Morning Post
16-07-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's DSE stars praise power of AI, eye local medical degrees
Most of the top scorers in Hong Kong's university entrance exams have said they used AI to boost their learning performance, with at least 11 of the 16 star pupils opting to study medicine locally. One of the top performers said on Wednesday he would study veterinary medicine, while another three planned to study overseas, as youngsters across the city learned their results for this year's Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE). A record high of 16 students – 11 boys and five girls from 14 secondary schools – achieved perfect scores. Wang Haibo, a student at Hong Kong Chinese Women's Club College in Sai Wan Ho, was the so-called ultimate top scorer after achieving the highest grade across seven subjects, including three core ones and four electives, as well as the extended maths module. He also secured an 'attained' grade in citizenship and social development. He said he would study medicine in Hong Kong, but had not decided on a university. 'Medicine is my interest, and I also want to help others and do something for society,' he said.
South China Morning Post
16-07-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Cross-border top scorer ‘excited' about Hong Kong DSE success, as AI a hit among students
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP's journalism by subscribing. New users who download our updated app get a seven-day free trial. Students across Hong Kong are learning their results on Wednesday for the city's muniversity entrance exams. Both parents and their children will be hoping for the best as they find out scores for the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE), which grades most subjects on a seven-level scale from 1 to 5**. This year, 55,489 candidates signed up for the exams, a 10 per cent increase from the 50,591 last year. Most of them, or 45,328, were school candidates. The figure marked a 5 per cent increase from the 43,160 who signed up for the exams last year. The other 10,161 students were private candidates, up 37 per cent from the 7,431 in the last edition, partly due to the increased number of takers living in mainland China. Students who achieve level 5 in a subject are graded as 5, 5* or 5**. Level 5** is awarded to the highest-scoring 10 per cent of candidates, with 5* allocated to the next 30 per cent and 5 for the rest. There are a total of 16 top scorers from 14 schools this year, with a male student achieving the highest results among the batch after securing 5** for four electives, three core subjects and the extended maths module, in addition to an attained grade in citizenship and social development. Ten male and five female students scored a perfect 5** across six subjects this year, with an 'attained' result in citizenship and social development and 10 of them were 'super top scorers', as they also earned a 5** for the extended elective maths module. Reporting by William Yiu, Emily Tsang, Leopold Chen, Lynn Zhang, Lorraine Chiang, Kathryn Giordano, Timon Johnson, Yohji Lam, Ellie Yau, Hannah Wang, Connie Wong and Nora Mankel More from our coverage:
