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Hong Kong universities admit more non-DSE students, DSE share falls

Non-DSE entrants now make up nearly 30.0% of roughly 15,000 government-funded places, while the DSE share dropped to 72.0% from 82.0%.

Reported · Written up by our desk · North America

Hong Kong public universities have admitted a record share of students through routes outside the local Diploma of Secondary Education, with non-DSE intake rising 63.0% over seven years to account for nearly 30.0% of the 15,000 government-funded first-year places, according to analysis by the South China Morning Post.

The paper also found that the number of home-grown students taking the DSE exam fell 7.0%, shrinking DSE students as a proportion of admissions from 82.0% to 72.0%, a shift that has prompted calls for a cap on admissions using alternative qualifications.

SCMP said it isolated the trend by analyzing University Grants Committee data on first-year first-degree admissions across all eight government-funded universities from 2019-20 to 2025-26, comparing admissions based on DSE and non-DSE qualifications.

A student guidance consultant, Ng Po-shing, told SCMP the reduction in DSE places is effectively pushing up admission scores, and he pointed to complaints from students who report missing out on programmes despite hitting median scores under the previous cohort.

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