The Nine Colleges’ Orientation Camps: Four-College Rallies, 300-Strong Colleges, and the Compulsory Communal Dining Divide

One university, yet nine orientation camps that look nothing alike: at New Asia, freshers trek up to the college’s old hilltop site to learn its history through games; at C.W. Chu, the 300 incoming students already know, before camp even starts, that three nights a week for the next four years will be spent eating together. CUHK’s collegiate system is often reduced to “general education classes plus a hall of residence,” but the first week of orientation camp is precisely the moment when the differences between the colleges become most tangible to a new student. This piece steers clear of controversies over camp activity boundaries (see the dedicated article on the Complete Orientation Camp File) and focuses solely on comparing the scale and format of the nine college orientation camps, organised by their founding era and institutional design.

CUHK has nine constituent colleges, but they did not all arrive at once: New Asia College, Chung Chi College, and United College^※ were each founded independently between 1949 and 1956. The three amalgamated to form CUHK in 1963, and Shaw College joined in 1986—together they are known as the “four old colleges.” For nearly twenty years after that, no new colleges were added, until between 2006 and 2007, five new colleges—S.H. Ho, Morningside, Wu Yee Sun, Lee Woo Sing, and C.W. Chu—were founded in quick succession through private philanthropic donations, collectively referred to as the “five new colleges.” This chronological divide cuts through more than just the university’s history; it also bisects the organisational logic of the orientation camps. Intake size, residential policies, and admission methods vary across all nine, and it is during the first week of orientation camp that these structural differences first become visible.

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# Why the Old College Camps Always “Look Back at College History”

# Why New Asia’s Orientation Camp Walks to Its Old Campus

According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry for New Asia College^※, the New Asia orientation camp is typically held over four days during the final days of August. On the afternoon of the second day, during the “City Exploration” segment, some groups set off from New Asia Middle School—which was the college’s campus from 1956 to 1973 and still stands today as a secondary school in Kowloon—where participants use a series of games to learn about the college’s migration from Kweilin Street to Farm Road, and then to Ma Liu Shui in Sha Tin. This “bringing freshers back to the old site” design has no counterpart among the five new colleges, because they have been on the Sha Tin campus since the day they were established, with no pre-move history to trace.

# The “Four-College Rally”: An Orientation Ritual Shared by the Four Old Colleges

The same entry records that on the afternoon of the third day of orientation camp, New Asia, Chung Chi, United, and Shaw—the four colleges founded before the year 2000—hold a “Four-College Rally,” which concludes with a group photo of all the participating freshers. This is a cross-college collaborative orientation ritual exclusive to these four historically deeper colleges. The five new colleges, each smaller and with different admission channels, have never been incorporated into this traditional joint ceremony.

# Shaw College: An Industrial-Scale Orientation for Over Three Hundred

Shaw College is the youngest of the four old colleges, established only in 1986, yet it has one of the largest student populations among the nine. According to the official Shaw College orientation camp page^※, its camp is normally held in late August and involves more than 300 local and non-local freshers. Activities include an opening ceremony, an orientation dinner, a city treasure hunt, a college treasure hunt, and a variety night. The whole affair is coordinated by two dedicated officers (Tina Deng and Alex Yip)—a model where full-time administrative staff serve as fixed points of contact for the camp, reflecting how, as a large college, Shaw’s orientation camp has become highly institutionalised and routinised, no longer relying entirely on student organisers rebuilding it from scratch each year.

# United College: The Orientation Camp Is Just One of “Four Signature Traditions”

According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry for United College^※, United College was formed in June 1956 through the merger of eight private post-secondary institutions, with Dr. Chiang Fai-hin as its first head, and was originally based at 147 Caine Road, Hong Kong, before moving to Sha Tin with the rest of CUHK. Its college orientation camp (大O) is also held at the end of August over three to four days. What sets United College apart is that this camp is not an isolated annual fixture: it stands alongside College Anniversary (in October, lasting about two weeks, featuring events such as a campus run, a “Secret Angel” game, a carnival-style bazaar, and a thousand-person banquet), the College Singing Contest (in January), and the Master’s Cup (from February to April) as one of the “Four Signature Activities.” Groupmates met at the orientation camp often reunite just two months later at the thousand-person anniversary banquet—this tight “camp-to-anniversary” coupling gives United College a calendar structure distinct from the other old colleges.

# Chung Chi College: Three Days, Two Nights, Six Mega-Groups, and the “Late-Night Chat” Tradition

According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry for Chung Chi College^※, the college was initiated in February 1951 by Bishop R. O. Hall together with former Lingnan University president Li Ying-lam and others. A thanksgiving service was held at St. John's Cathedral on 2 October of that year, and classes began the following day. It remains the only CUHK member college with a distinct Christian heritage—its Chinese name means “exalting Christ.” According to the CUTSA Complete College Handbook entry on Chung Chi^※, the Chung Chi camp is usually held from late August to early September, lasting three days and two nights. Freshers are first divided into six mega-groups, with each mega-group further sub-divided into six subgroups, each equipped with around 15 group leaders (affectionately known as “group dads and mums”). Signature camp segments include the “main session”—which uses mini-games to guide freshers in understanding the leap from secondary school to university life, aiding their psychological transition—and the “late-night chat”—starting around midnight, groupmates and leaders sit in a circle chatting, playing cards, and snacking until four or five in the morning, making it the college's most iconic late-night tradition. The handbook specifically notes an inclusivity measure: even if a fresher does not understand Cantonese, they need not worry, because “each subgroup is assigned three group leaders, so there will always be someone who can translate for you.”

Chung Chi's orientation camp is immediately followed by the “thousand-person banquet”—the college's largest annual event, for which the organisers rent out Lingnan Stadium, erect a large stage, and all students gather to watch performances and, in their own words, “drink and fight for food” with their hallmates. This camp-plus-banquet combo, paired with the Ying Lin Hall dormitory tradition where “every resident has a unique nickname and residents call each other by their nicknames, never their real names,” constitutes a continuous sense of belonging design that distinguishes Chung Chi from the other old colleges. It is not something solidified in three days of camp, but something repeatedly reinforced through a year-round culture of nicknames and an annual feast. Chung Chi is also one of the few old colleges that employs group interviews during its admission process, differing from the “no interview, pure preference form allocation” approach of New Asia, United, and Shaw.

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# The New College Camps: The Cascade Effects of Small Cohorts, Full Residency, and Interview Admissions

# “The 300-Strong Colleges”: The Scale Logic of C.W. Chu and Morningside

Among the five new colleges, the orientation camps of C.W. Chu College and Morningside College project a fundamentally different ethos from their older counterparts, rooted in their design capacities. According to the official introduction to C.W. Chu College^※, the college was established in 2007 with a private donation, with a campus designed to accommodate 300 students, and began full operation in 2012. According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry for Morningside College^※ and related materials, Morningside was likewise founded in 2006 with a HK$100 million donation from the Morningside Foundation and the Morningside Education Foundation, and also operates on a small scale of about 300 students.

A 300-strong community means that orientation camps at C.W. Chu and Morningside are naturally intimate, small-cohort affairs. The total number of freshers is smaller than the intake of a single Shaw College camp; the ratio of group leaders to freshers, and the degree of familiarity each college staff member can have with each new student, exists in an entirely different dimension from the mega-colleges of three-thousand-plus like New Asia or Shaw. As the official C.W. Chu College “Introduction” page^※ highlights, one of the college's defining features is that “staff members know every single student by name”—a closeness that begins with the very first contact during orientation camp.

But a “300-strong small college” does not equate to a homogenous fresher intake, nor a uniform size benchmark. According to aggregated public sources, Morningside College was designed from the start with a fresher structure of roughly “one-third local, one-third international, and one-third mainland Chinese students (about 100 each)”—making it the most intentionally internationalised college of the nine. S.H. Ho College (officially S.H. Ho College, named after Ho Sin-hang, a co-founder of Hang Seng Bank, established in 2006 with a HK$170 million donation from the S.H. Ho Foundation, and welcoming its first cohort in 2010) took a very different path in terms of international mix. According to the CUTSA College Handbook entry on S.H. Ho College^※, the college's “degree of internationalisation is low; the majority are local and mainland Chinese students.” Of its two residential halls, Ho Tim Hall is “predominantly local students,” while Lee Quo Wei Hall has “a higher proportion of mainland Chinese students.” Further aggregated public data indicates that since 2012, S.H. Ho has maintained a full capacity of 600 residents (across Ho Tim Hall and Lee Quo Wei Hall), of whom about 450 are local students and about 150 are mainland and overseas students—a local-to-non-local ratio of about 3:1. This is higher than the roughly 20% non-local proportion found in older colleges like New Asia and United (see Mainland Students and Cross-Strait Cultural Tensions), yet far lower than the deliberately pursued “equal thirds” model of Morningside.

Both “small colleges” with fewer than 600 students, Morningside and S.H. Ho nonetheless have almost polar-opposite fresher demographics, and their orientation camps reflect this in both language environments and icebreaking formats. Morningside's camp must inherently accommodate multilingual communication, while S.H. Ho's camp handbook reminds local students that “(mainland) classmates unfamiliar with Cantonese may struggle” and that group leaders need to proactively support students facing language barriers. S.H. Ho's orientation camp runs for four days, including City Hunt, CU Hunt, a mega-group Beat session, numerous mass games, and a late-night “chat” segment. Attendance is compulsory, barring force majeure.

# After the Camp Comes “Compulsory Communal Dining”

The biggest systemic difference between the new college orientation camps and those of the old colleges lies not in the activities during the camp itself, but in the daily regime that kicks in immediately afterwards. According to the CUTSA Complete College Handbook entry on C.W. Chu College^※, the college's orientation camp (大O) is a compulsory activity, officially positioned as “a good opportunity to get to know Hong Kong people.” More critically, the relationships forged among “O-mates” within the same group during camp are sustained through compulsory communal dining on every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday thereafter—the college requires a communal dining attendance rate exceeding 60%. According to the CUHK's official college introduction page^※ and the official C.W. Chu College page^※, C.W. Chu is one of only three colleges at CUHK that requires students to reside on campus for all four years of study, combined with a “full-residence, communal dining” model. Orientation camp, therefore, is not merely a “first week” activity; it is the start of four years of high-frequency communal living.

This stands in contrast to the “four years, one year of guaranteed residence” model (usually only a portion of the total study period is guaranteed) at the old colleges—New Asia, Chung Chi, United, and Shaw. After an old college camp ends, most freshers will not necessarily live, eat, and sleep alongside their camp groupmates for four entire years. In contrast, a fresher at C.W. Chu or Morningside is almost destined to live and dine with the companions they meet at camp all the way to graduation.

# Wu Yee Sun College and Lee Woo Sing College: A “Middle Ground” at a Thousand-Student Scale

Not all new colleges follow the “300-strong small cohort” model. According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry for Wu Yee Sun College^※, the college was established in 2007 with a donation from the Wu Yee Sun Charitable Foundation, named after the founder of Wing Lung Bank, and was designed with a maximum capacity of 1,200 students, comprising 600 residential places and no more than 600 non-residential students—making it the largest of the new colleges, sitting in a scale “middle ground” between the 300-strong C.W. Chu and Morningside and the 3,000-plus old colleges. During orientation camp and inter-college rally events, its students chant a signature slogan (the official version being “Go Green, Be Sunny,” reflecting the college's environmental ethos). Since 2014, residential places at the college have become competitive, with a student-to-place ratio hovering around 2:1. The institution plans to add 250 new places, expected to be completed by 2027—meaning that about half the freshers in Wu Yee Sun's orientation camp know from their first day that they may not be able to live in college for four uninterrupted years. Lee Woo Sing College (officially Lee Woo Sing College, named after its founding donor Mr. Lee Woo Sing, with its Chinese name independently evoking “harmonious sound”) was also established in 2007 with a private donation of HK$150 million, planned for a capacity of about 1,200 students, roughly half of them residential. It welcomed its first cohort in 2011, making it the last of the nine to be founded—and consequently the one with the shortest history of orientation camps, yet to develop the decades-deep, fixed rituals like New Asia's “Four-College Rally” or United's “Four Signature Activities.” It's worth noting that Lee Woo Sing's Chinese and English names are not direct translations: the English name retains the donor's surname, while the Chinese name independently draws on the character wo (和, from the donor's given name “Woo Sing”) to evoke the idea of “harmony bringing good fortune.” This naming logic differs slightly from colleges like Morningside or S.H. Ho, where the Chinese and English names both tie directly and literally to the donor's name. New students in the college's introductory history session during camp often need to unpack this relationship between name and identity.

# Interview-Based Admissions: Already Filtered Before Camp Begins

According to a synthesis of sources including the “CUHK College Comparison” article on TutorCircle Blog^※ and the Knowdable CUHK Colleges Strategy Guide^※, the admission processes of Chung Chi, Morningside, S.H. Ho, C.W. Chu, Wu Yee Sun, and Lee Woo Sing all involve a group interview stage. New Asia, United, and Shaw, by contrast, require only a preference form and allocate students by programme and JUPAS score, with no separate interview. This means that freshers at Morningside, C.W. Chu, and other new colleges have already gone through a round of proactive selection and face-to-face interaction with the college before they even step into the orientation camp venue. For these freshers, camp is, to some extent, a continuation of a relationship with an “interviewer” whom they have already met, rather than an icebreaker among complete strangers.

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# Key Differences Across the Nine College Orientation Camps at a Glance

Sources: New Asia College Wikipedia^※, Chung Chi College Wikipedia^※, S.H. Ho College Wikipedia^※, Morningside College Wikipedia^※, Official Shaw College Orientation Page^※, C.W. Chu College Official^※, TutorCircle Comparison Article^※; scale and residential details for Wu Yee Sun and Lee Woo Sing are based on aggregated comparison articles, with no single source verified line-by-line, noted for multi-source corroboration.

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# Two Kinds of Orientation Camp, Two Ways of Making “College Belonging”

The orientation camps of the four old colleges rely on “history”—tramping freshers through old campuses, staging inter-college joint ceremonies, and having full-time officers run a well-oiled operation year after year. The sense of belonging comes from “you've joined a place with a story.” The orientation camps of the five new colleges rely on “scale”—small 300-strong cohorts, the pre-familiarity created by interview admissions, and the compulsory communal dining that immediately follows camp. The sense of belonging comes from “you know everyone here, and everyone knows you.”

Neither approach is intrinsically better than the other, but the difference explains a common observation one hears around campus: students from new colleges often say their college “is very warm and personal, but not overloaded with activities,” while students from old colleges say theirs “has rich traditions and plentiful activities, but with so many people, you can't possibly know everyone in your college.” According to the TutorCircle comparison article^※, this impression recurs across popular comparison articles, yet its causes are rarely traced back to the scale and ritual design of the orientation camps themselves. This piece attempts to supply that layer of institutional explanation.

The two symbols of the “Four-College Rally” and “compulsory communal dining” neatly encapsulate the different problems these two styles of camp set out to solve. In an old college of well over three thousand students, it is nearly impossible to know all your college mates in three to five days of camp. The “Four-College Rally” is thus not designed to make freshers know each other, but to make them remember “I belong to a college with seventy-seven years of history (counting from Shaw) or even longer”—the object of identification is the college itself, not any particular person. The new colleges invert this. In a community of 300, three to five days of camp is enough for freshers to recognise most of the college, but a college less than twenty years old does not yet have a heavy history to evoke. So the locus of identity shifts from “the college's past” to “the specific people around you.” C.W. Chu's camp groups continuing as dining partners, Morningside's camp needing to bridge language differences to unite a diverse cohort, S.H. Ho's camp consciously looking after mainland students adapting to Cantonese—all are different expressions of the same logic: the small-college camp is “building relationships,” while the large-college camp is “building a sense of history.”

It is worth noting that this divide is not immutable. According to the unified CUHK orientation camp registration page^※, since the JCNSO strengthened its coordinating role in recent years, all nine college camps are now applied for online through a unified “Orientation Activities Registration System.” Opening dates, fee approvals, and training requirements are converging—meaning that even as the specific rituals of each college camp diverge dramatically, the administrative framework at the university level is gradually consolidating, with all nine approaches to “manufacturing belonging” now sharing a common underlying structure of registration and oversight. (For details on the sexual harassment training and committee oversight mechanisms within this framework, see the Complete Orientation Camp File; this piece does not expand on that.)

For a comparison across the nine colleges on general education courses, high table dinners, and other aspects of the taught college experience, see College General Education and High Table Dinners. For controversies about orientation camp game boundaries across the years and the university's oversight framework, see the Complete Orientation Camp File; this piece does not expand on that.

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# Further Reading

• The Complete Orientation Camp File: Traditional Rituals, Organisational Structure, and Controversies Over the Years
• College General Education and High Table Dinners: How the Nine Colleges Shape Their Students
• Shaw College Further Examined: The Architecture of the Western Hillside and a Record of Full-Residence Life
• Accommodation, Hall Culture, and College Traditions

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