Hong Kong vs. US, help me on this decision please!

Sam_Lee
Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:09:12 +0000

^Well, those medians actually put them in the top-10% of their age group. Grading in A-level is ridiculously/insanely harsh. Don’t let those Cs and Ds fool you; those guys would (easily) score above 700s on SAT I Math and SAT IIs math/physics/chemistry. As an anedote, my friend got 800 on SAT math when he was in the 10th grade but got a E on Applied Math in A-level.

About 30% of senior secondary students qualify for the two-year program that prepares students to take A-level. Out of those, slightly less than 50% will get into university. That already means roughly top-15% of the population, a population that regularly rank among the top cohort internationally, based on their performance in http://nces.ed.gov/timss/index.asp. So there’s really no weak student in any of HK universities, let alone HKUST, which is generally regarded as #3 in HK.

Those in Globall Business probably think APs/SAT II are complete joke and would likely get 800s and 5s in whatever they would have prepared for.