Agents charging mainlanders up to 2M yuan for HK uni entry

Some education agents in the mainland are asking mainlanders to pay up to 2 million yuan (HK$2.23 million) for “guaranteed admission” to Hong Kong universities, Sing Tao Daily reported.

The agents charge students 800,000 yuan to 2 million yuan for admission to bachelor programs in the city’s top three universities – University of Hong Kong, Chinese University and University of Science and Technology – claiming they can arrange admission by “internal referral” or using fake overseas public examination results.

The prices for other universities range from 450,000 yuan to 1.2 million yuan. The prices for master’s degree programs are lower – 350,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan for an HKU postgrad degree. Adverts for these agents have been posted on Xiaohongshu – an Instagram-like Chinese social media – guaranteeing a “100 percent admission rate.”

The adverts say: “You can apply even with low scores and no language proof.” One of the agents said they charge 2 million yuan for HKU admission, 1.6 million yuan for HKUST and CUHK, 1.2 million yuan for Polytechnic University and City University, and 1 million yuan for Baptist University.

The agent said they help students obtain internal reference letters from university professors, allowing them to be admitted with lower requirements. Students do not have to submit their scores in the National College Entrance Examination, or Gaokao, just a limited number of reference letters as proof of their language ability, the agent added.

“If you have an International English Language Testing System score of 5.5, you can be admitted to the top three universities through internal referral, even without a Gaokao score,” the agent said.

Another way to get students admitted is to forge an academic background. The agent will ask its partner international schools to register for the student and give them a fake good score for A-Level or Advanced Placement exams by having someone take exams on their behalf, making them memorize the answers in advance or simply giving them high scores even without any exams.

“You just need to show up at the exam. Someone else will take care of it,” the agent said.

The agent also reassured that universities will not find out the exam results are fake as the scores can be verified on websites of overseas education authorities.

As for students applying for master’s degree programs, the agent said it can help students purchase undergraduate diplomas and grade results from overseas universities.

It would only ask students to pay half of the charges as a deposit and pay the rest after they receive the universities’ admission letters.

Another agent said it can help students gain admission through the same means, but programs requiring a portfolio – including the fine arts department and medical school – are excluded. It said students will get a full refund if they fail to get an offer.

Sources said the agents target mainland students who are unfamiliar with Hong Kong university admission mechanisms.

“Internal referral” is just a lie, but the agents can forge backgrounds for students as some overseas universities will sell their diploma, the sources said.

Through legal means, mainland students can apply for Hong Kong universities with their Gaokao scores or results of international exams such as A-level and International Baccalaureate.

Barrister Albert Luk Wai-hung said if an agent assists mainland students to be admitted to a university in the SAR by false means, both of them could be charged with conspiracy to defraud and jailed for up to 14 years.

According to mainland laws, forging a diploma is forging a national document which could be sentenced to up to three years, Luk said.