For local universities, IB doesn’t have any advantage over DSE as the universities have already adjusted their admission requirements for these two examinations according to the examination scores of the respective applicants.
HKU medical school
DSE - 5** x 1 + 5* x 3 + 5 x 2
IB - 42/43
HKU law school
DSE - 5* x 1 + 5 x 3 + Eng = 5 and Chi = 4
IB - 39/40
For DSE students, you are almost guaranteed an offer if you can achieve the Expected Score. For IB students, personal achievements other than exam score need to be considered as many students (including the overseas applicants) can achieve the minimum requirement.
In the past, many students chose IB over DSE (boys in particular) to avoid Chinese and LS (some EMI schools opted for Chinese exam paper for LS). With the replacement of LS by CSD and the change from 4C + 2E to Best 5 / 6, admissions to local universities is indeed more “DSE friendly” now.
Having said that, IB is an obvious choice for those students decided to study abroad as it is better recognized worldwide and the performance of HK IB students is the best in the world.