[pm90]

There’s definitely a lot of competition but 1 Billion is probably not the right number.

From the Wikipedia page for the examination required to get into Universities in HK, the number of test takers in 2020 is:

52,687 [0].

This doesn’t include students using international exams to get in, but that seems to be a fraction of this number.

Still very challenging but not 1 billion challenging.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Diploma_of_Seconda...

[nicolas_t]

Acceptance rate to the top HK university for locals is around 10% which is actually not that competitive and easier to get in than the average Ivy league universities (in addition to being cheaper).

There are 14 universities in Hong Kong of which 4 are well ranked. I would say the chances of getting into a decent university for HKers is actually much easier than for Mainland Chinese students.

There are some traditional families who feel the need to do a lot of extra curricular activities and tuition just so that there kid can go into the three prestigious subjects of law, medicine and finance but that's not all families.