Heads up, aspiring Iskos and Iskas! The UPCAT is back this year

IF you’ve been dreaming of studying at the University of the Philippines, you better start reviewing as the UP College Admission Test or UPCAT is coming back this year.

The exam was halted in 2020 because of movement and distancing restrictions at the height of the pandemic. Still, it will return in June in more than 100 test centers nationwide, UP announced.

The test will be held on June 3 to 4, but the exam application period will open in the first week of March.

Grades needed

All applications need to be done online. UP said it would reopen the online portal for this.

Students who want to take the test must encode their grades for Grades 8, 9, 10, and 11 in the portal.

The exam takers will encode their grades online only in September when Grade 11 grades will be final and complete for most. 

UP said it would also ask the applicants for hard copies of the official grades from their school for verification purposes.

Those who pass the UPCAT will be admitted for admission in the first semester of the academic year 2024-2025. 

Pandemic entry

UP suspended the UPCAT from 2020 to 2022 because of the public health situation. It admitted students based on analyzing the applicants’ high school performance during this time. 

The university used patterns and combinations of specific high school grades and other data to determine applicants’ admission scores. 

The tests

The UPCAT is UP’s way of narrowing down the list of students who will be allowed to enroll, as it only has limited slots for first-year students. 

More than 100,000 students took the UPCAT in 2019 for admission to UP in 2020. 

The entrance exam has four subtests. These are language proficiency, science, mathematics, and reading comprehension. 

According to UP, the standardized scores on the subtests are combined with the weighted average of final grades in the first three years of high school to determine if the application would be admitted. 

The university also considers socio-economic and geographic considerations to ensure that the UP student body is more representative of the nation’s population.

Who is qualified to take the test?

To be able to take the UPCAT, applicants must belong to one of the following categories:

• Senior students of Department of Education-accredited schools or secondary schools abroad.
• Graduates of DepEd-accredited schools or secondary schools abroad
• Declared eligible for admission to college after taking the Philippine Educational Placement Test (PEPT)

Those who have taken any college subject in the past or current academic year will not be eligible to take the UPCAT.

The applicants must also have their final grades for high school’s first to third years. There is no minimum high school average grade requirement for taking the UPCAT.

The applicants must have yet to take the UPCAT previously as well.  

You can only take the UPCAT once, so you better ensure you’re ready!