About 34 per cent of students who applied through Hong Kong’s university admissions system have secured tertiary education places this year, marking a slight drop from last year amid stiffer competition. When the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (Jupas) results were released on Wednesday, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) each said they had offered places to half of the 24 top scorers in this year’s Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) examinations. A dozen top scorers secured places in CUHK’s medicine programmes, while HKU offered places to the other 12 through its medicine, government and law, business administration and law programmes. The Jupas office said on Wednesday that 34.3 per cent of applicants, or 15,619, were offered places at local universities or on subsidised diploma courses under the system. In comparison, 15,808 of last year’s 43,269 applicants secured places.