18,350 pass UPCAT

MANILA, Philippines — Up to 18,350 applicants or 12.44 percent of the 147,437 examinees passed the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT) 2026.

“We have more qualifiers this year than last year, at 17,996. The total number of applicants increased by nine percent from last year’s 135,236,” UP president Angelo Jimenez said yesterday.

Qualifiers from public schools increased to 57.1 percent from 55 percent, “a consistent trend over the past few years,” Jimenez said.

Around 21.45 percent of the qualifiers came from households with annual incomes of P200,000 or below, he said.

First-generation college students comprise 12.7 percent of the qualifiers, or 2,323, Jimenez said.

“They are students who are the first in their families in four generations to enter college, giving these families a fighting chance to break a cycle of poverty and marginalization, a chance to have, simply put, a better life,” Jimenez said.

Qualifiers from indigenous communities increased to 439 from last year’s 379, he said.

“This is important to us as well, and personally to me, as I am the first Mindanaoan who became UP president and I am part of the Manobo tribe of Agusan Valley,” Jimenez said.