Friends who have kids about to enter college have been pestering me on how to improve their kids chances of getting into 1) UP, 2) Ateneo 3) DLSU and 4) UST. The kids are in the process of lodging applications for admissions in the university. Even a monsoonal downpour wasn’t able to disperse a long queue in front of the UP Diliman registrar’s building.

I asked my friends if they had sent their kids to our own brand of juku or cram school, namely the various entrance exam reviews and tutorial centers in town. All said they did. Now I asked them, “Isn’t it part of the package to advise the kids and parents of how to increase the chances of admission?” Obviously these review centers could not guarantee admission but at least it should give the students some edge.

If my friends who are parents aren’t confident of that edge, then they wasted about 10K pesos or more of fees. But it seems one thing is certain, college entrance tests passing rates reflect the state of basic education in the Philippines. Public education has lagged behind the private one and UP despite its numerous attempts at increasing access and “democratization”, can’t deny that private school educated kids have the edge.  As former UP Acad Affairs Veep said in one of the centennial lectures last year, UP can’t give more “democratization” and “palugit” without severely compromising and affecting the academic standards of the university. Even Ateneo’s Fr Ben Nebres implies the same for his Jesuit run university. In Ateneo some of my friends in academe say that some people were even promising zillions in endowments if the school will accept their less than qualified scions. Ateneo it seems has to draw the academic standards line. Now the Ateneans have an unkind suggestion….. “Send these kids down from Katipunan to Taft Avenue!” (BTW, I don’t take sides in the Ateneo-La Salle friendly and carino brutal tiff!)

Obviously even private (and expensive) basic education no longer gives value for all those 100Ks of money! A very good friend of mine and Business Day financial planning columnist Randell Tiongson writes about the same thing.

UP, Ateneo, DLSU and UST are still perceived to provide quality, excellent value for money tertiary education. However Randell and I are sure that the money end of the phrase is becoming bigger while the value end is becoming smaller. This is the challenge that faces the four eminent schools. As for UP, the 20K a sem fees should make Lean Alejandro spin in his grave but now almost all of the students I have pay that fee. I encounter STFAP students once in a while. The 20K a sem fee is peanuts compared to the 60K-100K they will pay for Ateneo and DLSU. This is still lower than what they will pay for UST and a bit lower for UE, FEU and other U-belt schools. So it doesn’t surprise me that my friends want to get their kids into UP.

Now these friends of mine aren’t your run of the mill middle class salaried employees. They are lawyers, doctors, dentists, media practitioners and businesspeople.  I have the lowest salary if you put my paycheck with theirs! But with costs ever escalating, they are quite worried. Take for example the dermatologist. She has a lucrative practice (although she is more discreet than the doctora who has billboards on EDSA) but is worried of putting her daughter through pre-med and med school. She wants someone to inherit her practice. She desperately wants her daughter to get into UP!

Now getting into UP requires foresight and planning. You are accepted using a metric called the UPG or university predicted grade. Obviously everybody wants to get into Diliman followed by UPLB, Manila and Baguio. Most courses in Diliman are quota courses. As anyone who took Stat 101 would know, the chances of getting into Diliman is obviously much less than getting into let us say UP Mindanao. One reason is that most programs are in Diliman and this campus still has the image of being the best one. While President Emer Roman says that all programs in all campuses are comparable and no campus is better than the other, very few believe her.

So getting into UP is made more possible if you choose a regional campus and a non-quota course. The different campuses have different UPG cutoffs. Diliman, Manila and LB have the higher cutoffs. It is possible not to qualify for a first and second choice campus (let’s say Diliman and Manila) but have a UPG that can qualify for a regional campus. Here the applicant has a second chance but it depends if the campus slots haven’t been filled. In many cases, it is crunch time. One pamangkin was finally accepted to UPLB the day before classes started! For her it was do or die since her family can’t afford to send her to Ateneo without jeopardizing her kid brother’s chances for a high school education!

The non-qualifying applicant can also do his freshie year in another school and transfer to UP for their second year. Many respected individuals in society became UP alumni this way. I count many friends who “flunked” UPCAT, took a year in Manila’s U-belt and transferred to Diliman and UPLB. They graduated from UP and do justice to their experience. My experience is that these transferees take their RGEP courses more seriously.

Well some of my friends suggest that I pull strings. Well I can’t do that (most especially for them!). It used to be that there was a PD (Presidential Discretion) and it was said that admission slips were stamped with a giant red PD visible to all from 10 meters! Theoretically such discretions can still be applied but only in extremely meritorious cases that need the board of regents approval. For example gifted child and Physics whiz Mikaela Fudolig got into UP without the UPCAT since she was in an experimental early college placement program. But I doubt if the majority of mortals are like her.

Now I have to keep away from my pestering friends!

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