Easy to say this when you don't have 1 billion people also gunning for the opportunities you want (maybe less since they're in Hong Kong and not the mainland)

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...

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.

Involution...

Exactly, probably better to teach ones kids how to be decent little people and then have faith that they'll figure it out.

Figure out that unless you've won the genetic lottery you don't need to apply?

>> Because this is Hong Kong, and if you want to get into a good high school, and then a good university later in life, this is what you do here, unless either A) your kid has really high IQ and would skip years or B) you are rich and don't mind just paying your way through international schools.

Sounds like the plot of GATTACA. Maybe people who don't live there should not hand out advice too easily?

Yep. I cannot advise. In Texas education is not considered enough. But this sounds ridiculously too far the other way. The book “The Myth of Merit” comes to mind.