The results are out for students who applied for the first high school joint entrance program, and it's definitely a fierce competition for those who have their eyes set on the prestigious schools in Taipei City.

Out of 159 students, only 17 people were accepted into the Taipei First Girls' High school, setting the admission rate at around 10 percent.

Chongcing Junior High School's Lee Yi-jung and Chang Chia-juei chose not to take part in the first phase of New Taipei City's open admission program,

and instead threw their hats into the ring in Keelung and Taipei's more competitive open admission program in the hopes of attending Taipei First Girls' High School.

Chang and Lee are, respectively, in the top 1% and 2% of their school, and were two of the 159 New Taipei City students vying for one of TFGHS' 17 available spaces.

Chang ultimately made the cut, but Lee did not. Chongcing officials say that Chang was the only one of the school's 217 students to successfully apply to a public high school.

A high percentage of New Taipei City's top junior high school students have their sights set on Taipei City's "star" high schools.

As a result, all 41 of the open admission applicants accepted by Pan Chiao Senior High School, which is one of New Taipei City's top high schools, come from remote-area junior high schools.

While this will help many disadvantaged students, Principal Chang Hui-cheng says that the trend indicates that New Taipei City's schools have a great deal of room for improvement.