HONG KONG -- More than 200 new students from the Chinese mainland have been given offers to commence their undergraduate education at City University of Hong Kong (City U) this September, CityU announced on Monday.

Through the National University Entrance Examination Scheme ( NUEES), CityU recruited 210 outstanding senior high school graduates from the mainland this academic year, 40 more as planned. The students are expected to complete a four-year undergraduate program including a foundation year at the university.

According to CityU's Vice President (undergraduate education) Richard Ho Yan Ki, both the quality and quantity of candidates are much higher than last year, and many of those admitted this year are top performers in NUEES.

Three single-subject champions have been admitted including two champions in Mathematics from Beijing and Zhejiang province, and one champion in English from Guangdong province's Foshan city, Ho said.

Furthermore, about 30 percent of the candidates recruited are students talented in arts, physical education, music, chess and some other areas; and many of them are awardees of national contests and recipients of awards in provincial/city level competitions in particular academic areas such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, kinetics, biology, computer and literature.

Ho said that about 80 percent of the outstanding students will receive scholarships of different types and levels. CityU has newly established a scholarship for single-subject champions which provides a one-off amount of 80,000 HK dollars (about 10,256 U.S. dollars) to each successful candidate.

From last year, the Hong Kong government allowed eight local tertiary institutes to increase the percentage of recruiting non- local students to 10 percent, which led to a surge of number of application from the mainland this year.