TL;DR: Adamson publishes roughly 45 undergraduate programmes across ten colleges, and only some of them end at a PRC licence. Architecture, Accountancy, Customs Administration, all seven engineering disciplines, Geology, Nursing, Pharmacy, Chemistry, Psychology, the education degrees and Juris Doctor do. Business administration, hospitality, all four computing degrees, communication, political science, philosophy and biology do not. The traps are the look-alike pairs: Chemical Engineering versus Chemical Process Technology, and Computer Engineering versus Computer Science.
If you want the plain programme list college by college, we already have that in Courses Offered at Adamson University. This post asks a different question: of everything Adamson publishes, which qualifications are gated by a licensure exam, and which are not — because that single fact changes how you plan four years.
Why the distinction matters more than the course name
In the Philippines, a regulated profession means you cannot practise under the title without a PRC licence, no matter how good your transcript is. That has three practical consequences.
First, the exam is the real graduation. A nursing or accountancy degree without the licence is a credential, not a career entry ticket. Second, review time and review cost are part of the total price of the degree, and nobody puts them in the tuition schedule. Third, transferring late is expensive in a regulated programme, because curricula are set by CHED memorandum and the subject sequence is rigid.
Our list of courses with board exams covers the national picture. What follows is Adamson's specific line-up.
The licensed programmes
Taken from Adamson's own Programs of Study page, grouped by where the qualification lands.
| Programme | College | Leads to |
|---|---|---|
| BS Architecture | Architecture | Architect licensure exam |
| BS Accountancy | Business Administration | CPA licensure exam |
| BS Customs Administration | Business Administration | Customs Broker licensure exam |
| BS Chemical Engineering | Engineering | Chemical engineer board |
| BS Civil Engineering | Engineering | Civil engineer board |
| BS Computer Engineering | Engineering | Computer engineer board |
| BS Electrical Engineering | Engineering | Electrical engineer board |
| BS Electronics Engineering | Engineering | Electronics engineer board |
| BS Industrial Engineering | Engineering | Industrial engineer board |
| BS Mechanical Engineering | Engineering | Mechanical engineer board |
| BS Mining Engineering | Engineering | Mining engineer board |
| BS Geology | Engineering | Geologist licensure exam |
| BS Nursing | Nursing | Nurse licensure exam |
| BS Pharmacy | Pharmacy | Pharmacist licensure exam |
| BS Chemistry | Science | Chemist licensure exam |
| BS Psychology | Science | Psychometrician licensure exam |
| Bachelor of Elementary Education | Education & Liberal Arts | Licensure Exam for Teachers |
| BSEd major in English | Education & Liberal Arts | Licensure Exam for Teachers |
| Bachelor of Physical Education | Education & Liberal Arts | Licensure Exam for Teachers |
| Juris Doctor | Law | Philippine Bar Examination |
Two entries deserve a second look. BS Petroleum Engineering is on Adamson's list too; petroleum engineering is not one of the long-established PRC boards in the way civil or mechanical is, so treat it as a career-track degree and confirm the current licensure position with the College of Engineering rather than assuming. And BS Psychology leads to the Psychometrician exam at bachelor's level — the Psychologist licence needs a master's, which Adamson also offers.
The programmes with no board exam
These are real degrees with real employment routes. They just do not end at a licence:
- BS Business Administration, in all three published majors — Financial Management, Marketing Management, Operations Management
- BS Hospitality Management
- BS Computer Science, BS Computer Science and Information Engineering, BS Information Systems, BS Information Technology, and Associate in Computer Technology
- BA Communication, BA Political Science, BA Philosophy
- BS Biology
- BS Chemical Process Technology
- Bachelor of Physical Education major in Sports and Wellness Management
Nothing here is second-tier. Unregulated fields often reward portfolio and experience faster than regulated ones do. The point is only that you should know which game you are playing before Grade 12 ends.
The three pairs people get wrong
Chemical Engineering versus Chemical Process Technology. Adamson lists both under the College of Engineering. Only the first is the path to the chemical engineer board. The second is a technology programme. If a family member says "he's taking chemical something at Adamson", that sentence does not tell you whether a licence is coming.
Computer Engineering versus the four computing degrees. Computer Engineering sits under the College of Engineering and leads to a board. Computer Science, Computer Science and Information Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology sit under the College of Computing and Information Technology and lead to none. Four letters of difference, two different worlds.
Physical Education versus PE major in Sports and Wellness Management. Adamson publishes both. The plain Bachelor of Physical Education is the teaching degree that feeds the LET; the Sports and Wellness Management variant is oriented toward the fitness and sports industry. Ask the College of Education and Liberal Arts which one carries the professional education units you need for the LET.
Starting from Adamson's own senior high school
Adamson runs basic education through to Grade 12, and its Programs of Study page names three SHS strands: STEM, ABM and HUMSS. That is a narrower menu than some Manila schools offer, and it lines up almost exactly with where the licensed college programmes sit.
STEM feeds engineering, architecture, pharmacy, chemistry, nursing and geology. ABM feeds accountancy and customs administration. HUMSS feeds the education degrees, political science and psychology. There is no technical-vocational strand and no arts and design strand published, so a student aiming at a TVL route would need to look elsewhere for Grades 11 and 12 before coming back for a degree.
Worth asking the admissions office directly: does completing Adamson's own senior high school change anything about college admission — a waived entrance test, priority in a quota-limited programme, or a continuing-student rate. Schools handle that differently and Adamson does not publish its policy.
What the licensed programmes ask of you first
Adamson does not publish subject-level entry cut-offs per programme. What it does publish is a single admission route — the AdU College Entrance Test (AdUCET) — and a separate enrolment document list once you pass. The distinction between applying and enrolling is where most applicants lose money, and we set it out in full in the Adamson admission guide.
Three things follow for licensed programmes specifically:
- Programme quota, not just a passing score. Regulated programmes with laboratory and clinical capacity limits fill differently from open ones. Ask whether your preferred programme has a separate cut-off.
- Transferee crediting is stricter. Adamson runs a separate evaluation and interview for transferees, and in a CHED-prescribed curriculum, fewer subjects credit cleanly.
- Doctor of Pharmacy, Juris Doctor and Graduate School have their own enrolment procedures — Adamson's registrar page lists them apart from the undergraduate route.
Where the money question sits
Adamson's own site does not publish a tuition schedule on the Programs of Study or college pages; fees are handled through the Finance office. Cost per unit also varies by programme, and laboratory-heavy licensed degrees are rarely the cheapest ones on a campus. Our Adamson tuition guide covers what is known about the published fee structure and what is not.
Budget separately for the licensure step. Review centre fees, PRC application, and the months of not-earning between graduation and the exam are all real and none of them appear in an assessment slip.
How to use board results without being misled
Adamson publicises licensure results, as most universities do. A school-level passing rate is genuinely informative, but only when you read it with three caveats: it moves cycle to cycle, it usually reports first-time takers rather than everyone, and a small cohort can swing a percentage wildly. A published rate is a starting point, not a verdict.
Ask the college two questions the published rate will not answer: how many students actually reached the exam from the cohort that started, and what internal review support is included.
Who Adamson suits on this axis
A student who wants a licensed profession and values having the rarer engineering options — mining, petroleum, geology — on the same campus as the mainstream ones. Adamson is one of the few Manila universities that publishes all three. A student aiming at computing or business gets a full menu too, just without the licence at the end, which is fine as long as it is a choice rather than a surprise.
For contact details and location, see the Adamson University record, or compare against other schools in Manila.
Sources
- Adamson University — Programs of Study (adamson.edu.ph/v1/?page=programs-of-study)
- Adamson University — Academics overview and Registrar pages, including enrolment procedures by applicant type (adamson.edu.ph/v1)
