UST – what oblique admission policy was that?
To tell it like it is, there is something uncharacteristically oblique about the apparently new policy being implemented on new college freshmen seeking admission to their chosen academic program upon passing so-called UST Entrance Test.
Offhand, it now seems that passing this USTET is not the sole basis for admission to college but rather in having to pay the non-refundable reservation fee of P5,000 in order to apply for a confirmation of enrolment.
In short, failure to have the P5,000, paid in cash or credit, on the appointed date appears to automatically mean forfeiture of the chance for admission.
But what kind of unthinking is that?
It challenges reflection a situation where one’s eligibility for having passed the UST entrance college test will be deleted with the non-payment of P5,000 upon application for confirmation. To begin with, what is that confirmation for when there is a separate schedule for enrolment at which time students really have to pay their tuition and other fees?
UST is very dishonest, or consider this. When the applicants took the exams, they normally entertain the thought that passing the USTET is the sole basis for admission. Ergo, it cannot be erased or deleted resulting from a non-payment of the reservation fee on the scheduled date of application for confirmation since normally students pay only during enrolment period when tuition and fees have to be completed assessed before any terms of payment can be done.
This reservation fee therefore comes as advance payment even before the schedule enrolment schedule which must be sometime May. To think that this is non-refundable is doubly disconcerting.
This reservation fee therefore comes as the sole and primary basis for admission to the academic program an applicant – even if he or she did not pass the USTET – applies for.
Stated simply, it means that a slot for admission is still being publicly auctioned even when in truth and in fact, someone has already acquired it by having passed the USTET where one pays P500 for an entrance test permit.
Is this not unfair, is this not unjust, is this not gross unthinking on the part of UST that professes the development of a unique Thomasian core of values?
So we just might be seeing the whole university as a huge parking space where to get a slot for admission, one simply pays P5,000 to be able to effectively cancel the right of the applicant to get that admission upon payment of tuition and other fees upon enrolment but not upon payment of reservation fee of P5,000 upon application for confirmation.
What is that application for confirmation all about when it is already in the database of the University who it should confirmed to have passed the entrance text set for the purpose of choosing the students who deserve to get enrolled in the university system?
If this is not stupidity on the part of this vaunted University of Santo Tomas, I don’t know what is. Even if no one may have yet complained about this policy, it does not mean it is moral or legal. In fact, it is not moral and it is not legal however one looks at it.
What adds insult to injury are the other nuances that go with certain other procedures and the kind of officials or employees in the University who appear to have allergies with parents having to accompany their children to UST.
For instance, the Dean herself of a certain college in UST is entirely lacking in finesse in treating inquiring parents on this new development. There is no such thing as a confirmation of enrolment in more recent past.
Why this has been thought of now is really beyond us.
In fact, when one inquires over the phone whether one can pay the P5,000 reservation fee on enrolment date, they say it is no way. They say that if such amount is not paid, the slot for admission is automatically lost as it implies that the applicant is not interested and then consequently, such slot is given to another willing to pay the reservation fee.
Certainly, such stupid equivocation is entirely annoying. That to me is a lot of convoluted logic, come to think of it.
What now happens to the wisdom of a college entrance test if the same slot can be sold to another should the original owner of such slot fail to pay upon confirmation?
It must have been 30 years since I last stepped foot in the University as a faculty member of the College of Architecture & Fine Arts teaching social science courses.
It saddens me to think that in this University where I worked 8 hours a day to get a pay envelope the contents of which I pay back to the Treasurer to finance a mere bachelor of arts degree has not overcome the follies of history.
It saddens me to know that unless this arbitrary policy is immediately shelved, we are seeing a University that deserves to be sanctioned by the Commission on Higher Education for educational malpractice.
Yes, this form of educational malpractice is too revolting.