Two of the four mainland Chinese schools whose students may sit Hong Kong’s university entrance examinations as school candidates said most of their pupils passed the core subjects, outperforming the citywide average.

The four Greater Bay Area schools are the only mainland institutions authorized by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority to register their students as school candidates for the Diploma of Secondary Education examinations. Students following the curriculum elsewhere must apply under a different candidate category.

To qualify for admission to Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities, students must also attain Level 3 or above in two elective subjects. However, the four mainland schools did not disclose how many students reached that threshold.

This year, the proportion of day-school candidates meeting the minimum university admission requirements edged down to 36.8 percent from 38.5 percent last year.

Shenzhen Hong Kong Pui Kiu College Longhua Xinyi School said 87 percent of its students passed all core subjects, while the Affiliated School of JNU for Hong Kong and Macau Students in Guangzhou reported a 71 percent pass rate.

Both figures exceeded the overall rate of 42.7 percent recorded among more than 43,000 day-school candidates.

The Dongguan campus of the Affiliated School of JNU did not disclose its pass rate, saying only that all graduates had achieved scores meeting the admission requirements for undergraduate programs at universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Similarly, Minxin Hong Kong School in Guangzhou said only that more than 90 percent of its students had obtained results broadly meeting university admission requirements.