Being the premier State University, the University of the Philippines offers a wide range of degreeprograms. Most of the programs requirequalification through the UP College Admission Test, or more popularly known as the UPCAT. Tomaintain its high standard of education and to maximize its limitedresources, UP has had to limit slots for freshman admission to eachcampus and to its various degree programs thus a screening process is necessary for UP to distribute these slots.
If you decide to take the UPCAT you will be among the tens of thousands students who will be vying for the more or less 13,000 slots for UP. Last year, the number of examinees was more than 80,000 (there were only over 70,000 examinees in the previous years). As you might have noticed, the competition in the UPCAT is very tough.
The UPCAT consists of 4 subtests: Language Proficiency, Science,Mathematics and Reading Comprehension. Each subject covers most of the topics that you have taken during your high school years. Here are the subtopics that are included in the test:
But the UPG, simply put, is just comprised of the following:
To obtain the final UPG, other factors are integrated by either adding or subtracting a fraction of a point from the initially computed UPG.
In the previous years, the cut-offs for the different UP campuses are as follows:
| UP Manila | 2.1-2.2 |
| UP Diliman | about 2.2 |
| UP Los Baños | 2.3-2.4 |
| UP Baguio | 2.6-2.7 |
| UP Tacloban | about 2.7 |
| UP Cebu | about 2.7 |
| UP Iloilo | about 2.7 |
| UP Mindanao | about 2.75 |
Thus, campuses with high UPG cut-offs are harder to get into than campuses with lower UPG cut-offs. You should be wise on what you put on your campus choices in your application as this plays a major factor in your probability of passing the UPCAT.
After qualifying for a campus, you are then screened for acceptance into one of the degree programs you chose. Each degree programuses a different grade predictor which uses the UPCAT subtest scores, depending on the focus subject of the program. Campus qualifiers are ranked according to the degree program predictor. Top-ranking qualifiers are accepted according to the number of slots available for a program. Thus the number of applicants for the degree program and the program quota matters.
As an illustration, admission to Engineering programs would require a high math and science subtest score. In contrast, Mass Communications degree will require a high subtest score in Language and Reading Comprehension.
If you make it to the quota for your first choice program, you will nolonger be screened for your second choice. If you don’t make it to yourfirst choice of degree program, you will undergo the same screeningprocess for your second choice. If you still do not make it, you willremain qualified for that campus but must then find a degree programthat can accommodate you.
Truth: You have to qualify first for a CAMPUS before you are screened for the degree program.
Your UPG should first make the cut-off for a particular UP campus that you applied for before you are considered for a degree program. If your UPG doesn’t make it to the campus cut-off, then there’s no point to screen you for the program. Thus, CHOOSE YOUR CAMPUS WISELY first; the course is secondary.
As previously discussed in qualifying for a degree program, if you made it to a campus but did not make it to the program cut-off, you will get a result of “Degree Program with Available Slot (DPWAS or DPAS). The campus you qualified into will find a program that can accommodate you.
Here’s an example: If the cut-off for UP Diliman is 2.2, the campus allots 70% of the slots to those who have above that UPG. UP Diliman then uses a deep selection parameter of 0.1. The absolute cut-off will then be 2.3 and this will be the cut-off used for students from underprivileged high schools and underrepresented areas.
Palugit: A bonus of 0.05 is given to the UPG of applicants coming from public barangay, public vocational and public general high schools, excluding those administered by state universities and colleges and science high schools. A palugit of the same amount is also given to applicants who are legitimate members of cultural minorities.
Pabigat: A penalty of 0.05 is given to the UPG of applicants who apply for regional campuses not within their geographical area as his second choice campus. One example is a student from Luzon choosing UP Cebu as his second choice campus. If that student chose UP Cebu as his first choice, although coming from Luzon, he will not have a pabigat.
The UPCAT differs from the other entrance test because it deducts 0.25 or ¼ of a point if you answered an item incorrectly. In a way, you are slightly penalized for a wrong answer. Note however that you do not get a deduction if you leave an item blank.
The question now is do you guess or do you leave an item blank if you don’t know the answer?
It would be better if you can eliminate a wrong answer before guessing so that your chance of getting the correct answer is increased.