Choosing a college for your son or daughter: UP, Ateneo, or La Salle?

As a parent, you’d really want to send your son or daughter to the best college. Identifying the best schools in the Philippines is easy. UP, Ateneo, and La Salle are  unquestionably the top three. But remember that your son or daughter is not enrolling in a university, he or she will be enrolling in a specific college or institute of a university, so the question of which university is best for your son or daughter is better framed this way: which university offers the best academic program for the course chosen.

Say your daughter wants to take up accounting. Which of the top 3 are known  for their accounting programs?  If you go by CPA board results, it would seem UP and La Salle appear superior to Ateneo ( this is just an opinion).  But if your daughter wants to take up math as a major, then Ateneo or UP looks better than La Salle ( again, this is just perception).

Now, if your son wants to take up computer engineering, UP would be top choice.

In short, it all depends on the specific course program.

The public perception is that La Salle is tops in business management, UP in engineering, and Ateneo for social sciences.

But then again, there are other factors that should weigh in. If “affordability” is critical, then UP is your first choice,  since its tuition fees are practically a small fraction of what it costs to send a son or daughter to La Salle and Ateneo.  No question there: Ateneo and La Salle are tops in matriculation costs.

But whichever school you’d choose for your son or daughter, he or she must pass either the UPCAT of UP, the Ateneo College Entrance Test, or the Freshman Entrance Exam of De La Salle University.

And the best way to prepare for any and all of these admission tests is to enroll at prep4college,  the top  test preparation website (www.prep4college.net).