UP explains how it computes UPG despite schools' varying standards

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines considers how high schools historically perform on its college admission test to adjust for "disparities" in their grading standards, a ranking UP official said on Tuesday, April 22.

Francisco De Los Reyes, director of the UP Office of Admissions, explained that this standardization is applied when calculating each applicant's University Predicted Grade (UPG) — the main basis for admission. 

High school grades account for 40% of an applicant's UPG, while their UPCAT performance is weighed at 60%.  

"There are schools that are very good, but it's hard to get a high grade there," the director said at a press conference on Tuesday, April 22. "But there are schools that [give out] high grades, but when it comes to the UPCAT, their scores are low. We know that disparity."

De Los Reyes' explanation for how the university determines admissions was shared at a press conference on Tuesday, shortly after the university released the results of the 2025 UPCAT. 

Around 13% or 17,996 applicants out of the 135,236 who took the test qualified for admission for the upcoming school year. 

More than half of this number are graduates from public schools.

Institutional memory

"UP has a very rich database of grades among all applicants in the admission test. The UPCAT has been there since 1968. And we have historical and institutional memory about how schools perform in the UPCAT," De Los Reyes said in mixed English and Filipino. 

"UP understands that there are differences, a lot of variations in the grading systems," he added.

UP keeps a record of "around more than 160 grading systems" nationwide, the director said.

For newly established schools, De Los Reyes explained that UP clusters them based on type, size, and location to assess grades from institutions without historical data in their system.

"We also entertain applicants from Filipinos abroad. So we also have an understanding of the grading systems [there]," Delos Reyes said.

This database, De Los Reyes said, allows UP to "transmute and standardize" high school grades in computing applicants' final UPG.

"For example, we know that in one place, the grade of one student is 85 in science, but they are the best already in that place," he said. "So perhaps that 85 might be considered average in NCR, but in a province, if that 85 is the highest in the region, UP views it differently."

Despite differences in grading standards, De Los Reyes said the university ensures it can "make grades comparable" when evaluating applicants.