Louella Mae Sas ||

Due to the health and safety protocols brought by the coronavirus pandemic, colleges and universities were forced to cancel their usual College Entrance Tests (CETs). These tests are the yearly examinations conducted to determine who are worthy and fit to enroll in their institution. These colleges would not be able to conduct these exams since it would be a major risk to gather thousands of students to take the test. Thus, each institution has weighed other options on what system would be best to follow for the 2020-2021 admissions catering to the pandemic situation.

The first university to announce its new admission system was the University of Santo Tomas (UST). Last August, they declared that they would not be holding the UST Entrance Test (USTET) for the college applicants this Academic Year 2020-2021 due to the restrictions brought by the pandemic. Instead of USTET, they will be holding the UST Admission Rating (USTAR) which would be based largely on the applicants’ record and academic performance.

The Ateneo de Manila University, on the other hand, declared at the end of October that their college application would open on September 1, 2020, and would end on January 2021. The university has decided to diminish its usual Ateneo College Entrance Test (ACET) and follow its new system of application which is completely online to cater to the current pandemic. The admission will be based on students’ academic and non-academic performance from Grades 9, 10, and 11, on the batch rankings, and also recommendation letters from their teachers, extracurricular activities, disciplinary record, and their admission essay.

Also last October 2020, UP revealed that there were five options they were eyeing on. These options were: (a) a paper-and-pen administration of the usual University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT) that would strictly follow the proper protocols; (2) and online examination, (3) a mix of online and paper-and-pen, (4) a system that would be based on their previous records and performance to determine their University Predicted Grade (UPG), and (5) a moratorium on the admissions. UP has already set the application period for first-year students to start this January 7, 2021, while the admission system is still undergoing modification. Lastly, for the college applicants of the De La Salle University, they would also not take the usual DLSU College Admission Test (DCAT). Their admission would be based instead on their academic record in high school, letters of recommendation, class rank, and other information to be filled in the application form. The application period started last November 23, 2020, and will end on February 15, 2021. Application results will be released on the 3^rd week of April 2021.