hi, im a current y1 hkust qfin student. in a previous post on r/hkust i wanted to see how much interest there was in qfin, and i think enough people have expressed enough interest for me to write a post about it.

since people who apply qfin to hkust also usually apply to hku and cuhk qfin (i also got offers from hku and cuhk qfin), i will give tips for those as well and crosspost to the relevant subs

NOTE: i will not do any chancemes, you can make a separate post about that and maybe ill help you on there instead (instead, refer to the grades section right below). also, feel free to ask longer questions that you have that you wanted to ask last time, and i can update this post accordingly

NOTE 2: i am writing this from an international perspective. i am a local applicant that went to an international school. if you are under the dse curriculum, it is a bit different and i dont know too much about it.

grades

grades are the most important part of your application, for any hk uni you apply to. they will probably be worth about 70-80% of your application. i would recommend the following grades on your application as a minimum, for any of these unis (maybe a little more for hkust):

• ib: 43 predicted minimum
• alevels/igcse: 4a* predicted, or if you already have your grades in, 3a*1a minimum, with a* in math
• ap/sat: 7 5s + 1550 sat (800 math), or more aps if you dont have sat, not including english or humanities aps. some can be predicted, but preferably you should have taken most of these before 12th grade. i was an ap student and had 13 stem aps with a 5 and 1590 sat, so i was a strong applicant. however i know some people who have gotten in with less

the approximate scholarship conditions are the following (for hkust, im not too sure about the other unis):

• ib: 44 or 45 for full ride or half
• alevels/igcse: 4a* for half scholly, 5a* for full
• ap/sat: if you get an offer, you will probably get a year scholly

conditions are approximately the following:

• ib: 40 to 41
• alevels/igcse: 3a*1a or 4a*, depending on uni. i think hkust is a bit more strict on alevels and igcse for some reason
• ap/sat: should be unconditional if they like your grades

i am not too sure about other curriculums like jee, but you can probably make a comparison based on the stats above

interview (hkust)

i remember last year the interview was in two stages. one was an interview given to sbm students in general, like a mira interview. it will be conducted online, start at any time you want, and will be recorded. i have saved logs about the structure of it. there will be 5 questions. first is a 30s introduction of yourself. then they will ask 4 questions that are possibly business related. based on what i got from most people, the questions differ between person but will have roughly 2 questions on business/politics, 2 weird questions (i.e. i got something related to designing a holiday, and what i learned from interviews). most people i know passed this stage, just give some confident answers and you should be good

then, once you pass that, they will give you an invitation to the actual qfin interview. for local intl school students (like me), it will be conducted irl, but for intl students it will be conducted online. it will be in a group of 4. there will be two interviewers, one will be someone from the qfin department and one will be ekkachai. you will be given about 30s to introduce yourself. you will have to prepare a resume beforehand, mostly about ecs, and give it to the interviewers. the purpose isnt really to see if you are fit for a "quant" role, but just so that they can ask questions about you and see if you can answer them.

they might ask weird questions, e.g. i remember them asking me why i went to the certain intl school that i studied at, because no one at my school had applied for qfin before. they will ask weird questions on purpose to try to catch you off guard so that they can see if you can think under pressure. you should really prepare things that you know well so that you can tell a story about it confidently

the second part is about financial news. you should have read some financial news recently, and remember certain news topics. ekkachai will tell you during the interview about topics you should not talk about (e.g. crypto, us-china relations, etc.). you will then take turns explaining the news pieces you've read, and ekkachai will ask some questions about them. for example, if you talk about how the u.s. interest rates are at 4%, he might ask you why the us would not set the interest rates to 1% (a response involving inflation or something would probably suffice).

there are a few important things about this second part of the interview.

• if ekkachai does not like the topic you are talking about, he might tell you to think of another topic. you will have to prepare multiple topics.
• secondly, and this is very important, try to find some NICHE financial news. if you are talking about interest rates and nvidia and ai and the korean stock market and all the things that are hype nowadays, he will be bored. if you talk about some new niche company and explain its significance, you can have less risk of someone having the same idea as you, and not have ekkachai bored out of his mind from a news piece hes heard tons of times

i would put a 20-30% importance on this interview for your admissions. be confident and answer questions he asks, and dont stay silent. talk more, not less. if somebody does not know how to answer a question, you may (politely) raise your hand and ask if you could add some remarks to someone else's news

interview (cuhk)

as far as i know, the interviews at cuhk is a bit weird. there are two different types of interviews that ive heard of. the first one (which is the one i did) is when you are in a group of 3 and you introduce yourself and talk about projects or ecs you did and why you're interested in qfin. the interviewer will ask you about your introduction, for example more details of a project you worked on. if you want to, you can implicitly emphasize that part of your introduction so that he asks about the project and prepare a response beforehand

otherwise, its very chill. its just the introduction + questions he has, and then questions you have for him. i remember i asked him a question, and i dont remember what it was, but he told me to meet girls and have fun at uni. lol

the second type of interview, also by the same interviewer btw, is apparently like a competition based interview. after the introduction, he will ask some business questions and you have to compete to answer them. i havent done this one, and it sounds a bit harder, but i think as i said for the hkust interview as well, be confident and dont be afraid to talk

interview (hku)

this will be a 1 on 1 interview. after a short introduction of yourself, they will have a look over at your grades and you will have a chance to talk about projects or ecs you did. i had a 14/15 aime and the interviewer was really impressed, so we talked about olympiads and whatnot for like a minute or so. then there was a math part. they give you about 5 minutes to do 4 math questions, and the questions were something like what you'd find on questions 5-15 of the amc. questions might be related to probability, or those letter addition problems, and logic puzzles. as always, be confident and dont be afraid to talk about your own experiences

other things

some things that people have asked about that i dont know where to put:

• based from our current cohort, there are about 4-7 intl non mainland students, and about 30-40% are mainland. rest are local. however between locals, its quite evenly split between local dse and local intl curriculum. admission wise this is a bit discouraging for intl, but if you do get in, most people speak english more than chinese
• in terms of resources, the fina department is actually very overlapped with the qfin department, so internships and competition opportunities that they send you through email will also be available to fina students. if you feel like qfin is too competitive for you, fina (bba in finance) could be a good alternative choice

if theres anything i missed, pls comment below and ill add it here

sorry that this is a bit disorganized, its mostly just an info dump for anybody interested