Autumn is approaching, and it is the hot season of application for those students who are interested in taking an advanced step on their education. We have noticed some recent posts on social media stating that there are some academic agencies or counsellors who can apply for the taught master’s (TPG) or research postgraduate (RPG – PhD/MPhil) programmes in HKU Sociology Department on your behalf, and that you can be admitted directly with a relatively poor undergraduate background, or without standard scores, IELTS or TOEFL requirements. We would like to tell all our applicants that this is not possible. Applications for our RPG and TPG programmes are highly competitive. While many aspects shall be considered when our panel review an application, including but not limited to the followings: relevance of background (qualification and/or working experience), academic standing, quality of research proposal/personal statement, language ability and referees' reports, etc; most of our postgraduate students came from very strong academic background (undergraduate studies from worldwide universities with QS ranking top 50 / Mainland universities with relevant subject QS ranking Top 20) and/or possessed extensive relevant experience.

We would like to remind all the prospective applicants that HKU Sociology Department does not entrust any academic agencies or counsellors in anywhere to recruit or admit students on our behalf, nor does it have a so-called "internal recommendation" mechanism for professors to recommend any non-local students for admission. According to HKU regulations, if a student is found to have forged academic qualifications, disciplinary action will be taken and he/she may even be expelled from the University. Over the past few months, we have also discovered a few applicants who were suspected of submitting forgery academic certificates through agencies. In addition to being immediately disqualified from admission, these cases have also been reported to Hong Kong law enforcement parties for further investigation.

Students who are interested in enrolling in our programmes must submit their applications directly to the University, and our Department will only consider qualified applicants on a merit-based basis.

For the applicants who are interested in our PhD/MPhil (RPG) programmes, please contact our academic staff to discuss your proposed research proposal with a potential supervisor before submitting your application to the University. For more details of application requirements and procedures, please visit: https://sociology.hku.hk/mphil-phd-sociology

For the applicants who are interested in our Taught Master’s (TPG) Programmes, you are advised to submit a direct application to the University after visiting our programme webpage: https://sociology.hku.hk/taught-postgraduate

秋天將至，又到了莘莘學子進修升學的申請季節。我們留意到近日在社交媒體上有些帖文，聲稱一些學術中介機構或輔導員可以代您申請香港大學社會學系的授課式碩士(TPG)或研究碩士/博士生(RPG)課程，儘管本科學歷背景比較不優，或學科成績︑雅思︑托福要求沒有達到標準也可以獲得錄取。港大社會學系在此聲明這是不可能的。我們的研究生 (RPG)和授課式碩士 (TPG)課程申請競爭非常激烈；我們的招生小組在審查申請時會作多方面考慮，包括但不限於以下內容：背景的相關性（學歷資格、工作經驗）︑學術地位、研究計劃書或個人陳述的質量、語言能力和推薦報告等等；我們的碩士生︑博士生大多擁有優良的學歷背景 (本科畢業於QS排名前50的全球大學或相關學科QS排名前20的內地大學) 及/或擁有豐富的相關經驗。

我們在此提醒各位有意申請者，港大社會學系從來沒有委託任何地方的任何學術中介機構或輔導員代為招收或錄取學生，也沒有所謂的“內部推薦”機制讓任何教授推薦任何學生。根據香港大學規定，任何學生如被發現偽造學歷，必會受到紀律處分，甚至被開除學籍。在過去的幾個月，我們亦發現有申請者涉嫌透過中介機構提交偽造學歷證書，除了立即被取消申請入學資格，這些個案亦已匯報給香港執法部門作進一步調查。

有興趣就讀我們課程的學生必須直接向大學提交申請，港大社會學系只會考慮符合資格的申請者，擇優而錄。

對我們的研究碩士/博士生(RPG)課程感興趣的申請者，請您在提交申請之前首先聯繫我們的學術人員，與潛在的導師討論您的研究計劃。請瀏覽以下網頁了解更多申請要求及程序詳情：https://sociology.hku.hk/mphil-phd-sociology

對我們的授課式碩士 (TPG) 課程有興趣的申請者，建議您訪問我們的課程網頁後直接向大學提交申請：https://sociology.hku.hk/taught-postgraduate