From the Jockey Club Scholarship to "Independent Admission": Twenty-Seven Years of CityU's Mainland Undergraduate Recruitment

In 1998, the Hong Kong Jockey Club committed HK$100 million to fund 80 mainland students and 180 local students to study at Hong Kong universities — the starting point of large-scale mainland undergraduate recruitment by Hong Kong institutions. Twenty-seven years later, for the 2026/27 academic year, CityU announced it would no longer admit mainland students through the national unified early-batch admission system, moving instead to fully independent admission. In between lies a full history of evolution from scattered funding to an institutionalised "top-scorer scholarship" system. This article traces the key milestones of CityU's mainland undergraduate admission system in chronological order, and is careful to separate which data describe the general "Gang Piao" (mainlanders in Hong Kong) situation across the whole of Hong Kong and which describe facts specific to CityU.

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# Starting point: the 1998 Jockey Club scholarship and 1999 policy relaxation

According to publicly available sources, compiled here^※, in 1998 the Hong Kong Jockey Club established a scholarship scheme worth HK$100 million to fund mainland and local students pursuing university studies in Hong Kong — the scheme ran for 10 years and, in total, funded 180 local and 80 mainland students^※. This is the earliest identifiable, documented pilot funding project preceding the large-scale, institutionalised admission of mainland undergraduates by Hong Kong universities.

Shortly after, in 1999^※, the Hong Kong SAR government relaxed immigration policy for non-local students, permitting mainland students to enter Hong Kong to pursue full-time undergraduate bachelor's degree programmes — this policy relaxation cleared the institutional obstacles for the large-scale recruitment that followed.

# 2003: The "eight universities" approved to self-finance mainland undergraduate recruitment, CityU among them

2003^※ was a key turning point. With approval from China's Ministry of Education, the eight UGC-funded universities in Hong Kong, including CityU, were formally permitted to recruit self-financing mainland undergraduates — CityU's mainland recruitment history began from this point^※. At the same time, the SAR government introduced a series of talent policies, including the Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals and the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, which paralleled the universities' self-financed recruitment.

CityU was subsequently approved by the Ministry of Education in 2005 for inclusion in the first national batch of key admission institutions^※, initially recruiting from 17 provinces and municipalities including Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang. The planned intake for 2005 was 150 students, with 193 ultimately enrolled^※; the planned intake for 2006 was 170 students, with the recruitment area further expanded to include Yunnan, Guizhou, and Jiangxi^※. These early figures, though modest in scale, marked CityU's mainland recruitment shifting from "scattered funding" to "institutionalised annual recruitment."

# Expansion of recruitment coverage: from 17 to 31 provinces/municipalities, from roughly 200 to roughly 300 admitted per year

Over roughly two decades, the scale and geographic coverage of CityU's mainland undergraduate recruitment followed a clear expansion trajectory. In 2005, CityU's recruitment covered 17 provinces and municipalities^※; in 2006, after adding Yunnan, Guizhou, and Jiangxi, this expanded to 20 provinces and municipalities^※. By the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years, CityU's mainland recruitment covered all 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions nationwide^※ — in under twenty years, moving from "window" recruitment concentrated in economically developed coastal provinces to full national coverage.

Recruitment scale expanded alongside this, though not at a uniform pace:

According to a 2024 report^※, CityU's mainland recruitment by that point drew on places from nine faculties/colleges jointly, including the College of Business, College of Engineering, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, School of Creative Media, School of Data Science, School of Energy and Environment, and School of Law — coverage that had expanded from the early years' focus on science, engineering, and business to nearly all of CityU's major faculties, reflecting a recruitment strategy shift from "bringing in a handful of top scorers" to "competing for students across the whole institution."

⚠ A note on differing reporting bases is warranted here: taking Guangdong province as an example, compiled reference material shows^※ that CityU's minimum admission scores in Guangdong rose year over year — in 2022 the minimum score for the humanities track was approximately 565 (corresponding to a provincial rank of roughly 7,701), rising in 2023 to approximately 580 for the humanities track (rank roughly 6,825; the science-track minimum was approximately 641). This set of province-level figures has not been found in any officially published, systematic year-by-year table from CityU itself — it appears only in compiled/relayed form on gaokao-application reference platforms. This article includes it as a reference point only, not as precise primary data.

# The making of the "top-scorer scholarship": tiered by gaokao percentile rank

As CityU's mainland recruitment became institutionalised, a scholarship system emerged that automatically assesses candidates by gaokao score percentile rank, popularly known as the "top-scorer scholarship." According to CityU's official mainland undergraduate admission page^※, the current scholarship structure has three tiers, all of which require no separate application — every mainland student admitted via the gaokao is automatically considered:

Assessment also takes into account English proficiency, interview performance, and overall merit, and continuation requires meeting the university's specified cumulative GPA each academic year. Where a candidate's home province's gaokao score-rank tables include policy-based bonus points, CityU awards the scholarship according to the bonus-adjusted rank, but disregards bonus points entirely for admission eligibility^※ — meaning scholarship assessment and admission-eligibility review use two different scoring bases, the former more permissive, the latter stricter.

This "automatic assessment, no application needed" design functions, in substance, as a recruitment tool with which CityU competes with mainland key secondary schools for top students — the full-scholarship tier requires the top 0.1% of the province, meaning roughly one candidate in a thousand liberal-arts or science candidates per province automatically qualifies for this tier — an extremely high bar.

# The "top-scorer scholarship" is not unique to CityU: a comparison with CUHK and others

CityU's "top-scorer scholarship" is not an isolated case, but part of a long-standing competition for students among Hong Kong's eight publicly funded universities. ⚠ Unverified, compiled from secondary sources: around 2005, CityU offered provincial gaokao top scorers a full scholarship worth approximately HK$440,000 over four years, while the Chinese University of Hong Kong at around the same time offered scholarships worth approximately HK$500,000 over four years to candidates ranked in the national top 100 — the two figures are similar, reflecting the intensity of competition among the eight universities for top-tier candidates. This comparative figure has not been found cross-confirmed by direct, contemporaneous official announcements from either institution — it appears only in compiled secondary-source accounts. It is included here as background reference only, not as a precise historical fact.

By the 2026 admission cycle, according to compiled publicly available admission material from multiple institutions^※, scholarship systems for mainland undergraduates across Hong Kong's eight publicly funded institutions had generally become "tiered and substantial" — beyond CityU-style tuition waivers tiered by gaokao rank, some institutions also offer higher-tier awards such as a "full entrance scholarship" (covering tuition plus up to approximately HK$175,000/year in living expenses). This suggests that gaokao-rank-tiered scholarships of the "top-scorer scholarship" type have become standard practice across the sector among Hong Kong's UGC-funded universities competing for top mainland candidates, with CityU one participant in this institutional ecosystem rather than its originator.

# The twenty-year trajectory of scholarship amounts: from "HK$440,000 over four years" to "full tuition waiver + HK$60,000/year"

The nominal value of the "top-scorer scholarship" has itself risen over time, and its terms have been adjusted more than once. According to admission reporting from around 2005^※, the full scholarship CityU offered in its early years to the top-ranked liberal-arts or science candidate in each province was worth approximately HK$440,000 over four years, said to cover all tuition, accommodation, and living costs for the duration; a 2007 admission report repeated the same figure^※, with the comparison figure of "only about HK$400,000 in self-paid costs over four years" being repeatedly cited that year. The scholarship's eligible pool was later broadened from "provincial top scorer only" to "percentile-tiered," and the Hong Kong Jockey Club's 2016 factsheet^※ reflects the scholarship scheme's overall picture, not CityU-specific figures.

Against the current standard — the full scholarship being a renewable full tuition waiver plus up to HK$60,000 in living allowance^※ — at the 2026/27 non-local tuition rate of approximately HK$190,000, four years of waived tuition alone would already exceed HK$760,000 in value; adding the living-allowance cap of roughly HK$240,000 over four years, the theoretical four-year total could reach approximately HK$1 million (this is this article's own estimate based on current published rates, not a total figure officially published by CityU; readers should refer to the university's current official tuition and scholarship pages). Compared with the "HK$440,000 over four years" figure cited around 2005/2007, the nominal amount has risen noticeably faster than either local inflation or general tuition increases over the same period — this parallels the sharp rise in non-local student tuition itself beginning in 2025 (see Tuition and Entrance Scholarships): two sides of the same financial picture, in which CityU has both substantially raised the "list price" of non-local tuition and used a proportionally equal or greater scholarship to retain the strongest mainland candidates — the net effect being a widening gap between what an "ordinary" non-local student and a "top-scorer" candidate actually pay.

# One exception: a higher bar for mainland applicants to the veterinary programme

Not every CityU programme assesses mainland candidates under the three-tier scholarship structure described above in the same way. CityU's flagship Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (BVM) programme — the only one of its kind in Hong Kong, run jointly with Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine — imposes stricter additional requirements on mainland applicants than most other programmes. According to publicly available admission material^※, mainland gaokao candidates applying to the Law and Veterinary Medicine programmes must achieve an English single-subject score of at least 135 (out of 150), and their actual gaokao score (excluding any policy-based bonus points) must meet their home province's first-tier undergraduate admission cut-off. This additional bar is one of the few instances in CityU's mainland undergraduate admission system where requirements are set programme by programme, reflecting the fact that the veterinary degree's international accreditation requirements (dual RCVS/AVBC accreditation) and its clinical training's heavy reliance on English-medium instruction demand a higher level of English proficiency than typical arts, science, or business programmes. The BVM programme's four full admission pathways, DSE requirements, CASPer testing, and other admission details common to non-local applicants are covered in full in CityU Veterinary Admissions Explained.

# From "uniform score cut-off, no interview" to "holistic review, interview for all": two assessment logics, 2025 and 2026

Before the 2026 independent-admission reform, CityU's mainland undergraduate recruitment had long used a mechanism based solely on scores, with no interview (veterinary medicine being the sole exception). According to 2024 admission reporting^※, for the 2024/25 academic year CityU applied tiered English-score thresholds by faculty: 120 (out of 150) for most faculties, 125 for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and 135 for the School of Law — veterinary medicine also applied the 135 threshold (see previous section). Aside from veterinary medicine, which required an online interview by invitation, all other faculties conducted no interview at all, admitting candidates purely by rank on total gaokao score and English single-subject score.

The 2026 independent-admission reform replaced this "scores-only" mechanism entirely with a holistic review model. According to compiled admission information^※, candidates who pass initial material screening will be invited to a fully English-language group or individual interview, assessing logical reasoning, English communication ability, and interest in the chosen field; final admission decisions weigh total gaokao score, English single-subject score, interview performance, and application materials together. At the same time, the English threshold was lowered overall and unified at 110^※ (Law and Veterinary Medicine retain the higher 135 threshold, unchanged) — while the lower threshold figure appears more permissive, the newly added interview stage substantively raises the overall difficulty of applying: the previous certainty that "meeting the score threshold secures admission" no longer holds, and candidates must additionally prepare for English communication and articulating their interest in their chosen field.

The logic running through this set of changes is consistent: CityU is moving away from reliance on nationally allocated admission quotas and a single score threshold, and instead using a combination of "lower score threshold + interview screening" to bring the final admission decision more directly under the university's own control — this parallels a broader trend among Hong Kong's eight universities toward strengthening "holistic assessment" in non-local admissions in recent years (see the CityU admission-mechanism section of Language Environment and the "Mainlandisation" Debate).

# The 2026 turning point: from "unified early batch" to "independent admission"

CityU's mainland undergraduate admission underwent an institutional adjustment in the 2026 academic year^※: before 2026, CityU's mainland recruitment operated through the national unified gaokao early batch, with admitted places counted against the national admission plan, requiring candidates to choose between mainland institutions and CityU as an either/or; from 2026, CityU moved to an "independent admission" model — explicitly not participating in the "national unified early batch," with admissions not drawing on the national admission quota^※ — eligible candidates may submit a separate application to CityU alongside their normal mainland university applications, with the two not in conflict.

The final class before the reform offers a useful reference point: drawing on compiled education-news material, CityU admitted approximately 300 mainland Chinese students through the "national unified admission" system in the 2025/26 academic year^※. Under the new policy, applicants must have an actual gaokao score (excluding bonus points) meeting their home province's first-tier undergraduate line / special-category admission control score, an English score of 110 or above, and are admitted on merit with no upper or lower quota limit by province^※ — "no quota limit" means CityU is no longer bound, as it was under the unified-admission era, by nationally allocated admission targets, and in theory its admitted intake could vary with the quality of the applicant pool.

This adjustment shifts CityU's mainland recruitment from a zero-sum competition — "competing with top mainland universities for one slot on the application form" — to an incremental model that "does not affect mainland applications, and adds one more option." For CityU, this could in theory expand its pool of potential applicants; for candidates, it lowers the decision cost of "betting on CityU meaning giving up a place at a top mainland university." Whether the roughly 300-a-year scale will grow noticeably as a result, or whether the composition of the applicant pool will shift, will only become clear once results from the next few admission cycles are known; this article does not make predictions on that point.

# The broader "Gang Piao" situation in Hong Kong: the boundary with CityU-specific admission data

The above traces CityU's own admission-system evolution. If the lens widens to the broader Hong Kong-wide phenomenon of "mainland students living and studying in Hong Kong," care must be taken to separate general research on the "Gang Piao" (mainlanders in Hong Kong) population as a whole from data specific to CityU — this is a standing principle of this site's editorial approach (see Language Environment and the "Mainlandisation" Debate).

A "Gang Piao" research report published by the Hong Kong Ideas Centre in November 2013^※ is among the earlier systematic surveys in this field — the study surveyed 500 mainland arrivals in Hong Kong for under 7 years (split evenly between students and working professionals) via face-to-face questionnaires, and conducted in-depth interviews with 30 respondents^※. Wen Wei Po reported the survey's core figures^※ as follows:

⚠ Not found: Among publicly available sources checked, this compilation could not locate any independent survey or academic study specifically sampling CityU mainland undergraduates. The Ideas Centre figures above reflect the general situation of the Hong Kong-wide "Gang Piao" population (including working professionals) and cannot be directly equated with the specific experience of CityU's enrolled mainland undergraduates. Issues such as CityU mainland students' housing difficulties (particularly hostel-place allocation, see Module 21), language adaptation, and social integration are not extrapolated or speculated upon in this article where no CityU-specific source supports them.

# A hidden throughline across twenty-seven years: from "funding individual students" to "institutionalised competition for candidates"

Viewed as a single timeline from 1998 to 2026, a clear throughline emerges: Hong Kong universities' approach to mainland student sources has shifted from early reliance on charitable funding (the Jockey Club) for individual students, to an institutionalised "competition for candidates" among universities — scholarship thresholds now precise to "top 0.1% of the province," and the admission model adjusted from "an either/or choice against mainland applications" to "independent admission, no conflict" — each step reducing the opportunity cost for top mainland candidates of choosing Hong Kong.

This throughline also explains why the "top-scorer scholarship" has become a highly recognisable term among mainland candidates and their families — it is not a one-off publicity device, but part of an admissions infrastructure that CityU and the other seven funded universities have continuously built and iterated over more than two decades. It is one of two sides of the same broader process as Hong Kong's overall policy of raising the non-local student quota to 50% (see Language Environment and the "Mainlandisation" Debate): one side is the policy question of "tightening or loosening the gate"; the other is the operational question of "on what terms to recruit the strongest mainland candidates."

::: Limited source material This article's early history for 1998–2003 relies primarily on a compiled Wikipedia entry (the original Hong Kong Jockey Club and government archival texts were not directly checked), and some early figures (such as the specific institutional distribution of the 80 mainland students) have not been found broken down in further detail in primary sources. CityU's own admission figures for 2005–2006 and 2024–2026 have specific documented records from Chsi.com.cn's Sunshine College Admission service, CityU's official admission website, and media reports, and carry higher confidence; however, continuous, year-by-year public data on admission numbers and provincial coverage for 2007–2023 is unavailable, and this article does not force an interpolation to fill the gap, presenting only the known data points. The historical comparison of scholarship amounts (2005/2007's "HK$440,000 over four years" versus the current estimated figure of roughly HK$1 million) is this article's own calculation based on publicly published rates, not a total figure officially released by CityU, as stated explicitly in the body text. Guangdong admission-score and rank data are drawn from compiled/relayed material on gaokao-application platforms, not from any officially published year-by-year CityU table, and are included for reference only. Public sources still lack systematic statistics on CityU mainland undergraduates' total enrolled numbers by year or a year-by-year growth curve, and this article has not attempted to force such a picture together. Data on the general "Gang Piao" situation is strictly limited to Hong Kong-wide samples and is not carried over into CityU-specific conclusions. :::

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