TL;DR: Canossa Academy Lipa publishes a genuinely detailed application checklist, and the surprise in it is sacramental: every applicant needs a baptismal certificate, Grades 4 to 11 need a First Communion certificate, and Grades 7 to 11 need a Confirmation certificate as well. Scholarships are generous but narrow — the top grant is 75 percent free tuition plus free extra and other school fees, and applications are only open to incoming Grade 7 and Grade 11 students, announced each December. Tuition itself is not published.
Lipa City has a dense private school market, and Canossa Academy Lipa is one of the older names in it: Canossian Sisters took over an existing Maryknoll school in 1967 and moved it to the Y-shaped campus on Calle Arzobizpado in Barangay San Carlos in 1969. It runs pre-elementary through senior high, and it is coeducational — the high school stopped being girls-only in 1988.
This guide is about the paperwork and the money, because those are where families actually get stuck.
The document list, and the trap inside it
The school's Be a Canossian page lays out one application checklist for all levels, with two conditional items that catch parents out.
Every applicant
- Two 1.5x1.5 recent identical photos, white background, with a name tag
- Clear photo or scanned copy of the PSA birth certificate
- Clear photo or scanned copy of the baptismal certificate
- Certified true copy of the report card showing the LRN, with at least second-quarter grades or the final grades for the current school year
- A recommendation form completed by the adviser or guidance counsellor, downloadable from the school's Downloadable Forms page
Additional, by grade band
| Document | Who needs it |
|---|---|
| First Communion certificate | Grades 4 to 11 applicants only |
| Confirmation certificate | Grades 7 to 11 applicants only |
That is the trap. A family transferring a Grade 8 student arrives with the birth certificate and report card, and discovers they now need two parish documents they have not looked at in years. Parish offices are not fast. Request them the week you decide to apply, not the week you plan to enrol.
The school also states where the originals go: originals and photocopies of everything above are presented and submitted to the Testing Center, and the original report card for the current school year goes to the Cashier's Office, both on or before enrollment. Two offices, two different documents. Do not hand the whole bundle to one window and assume it is done.
Three forms are downloadable from the site: the K12 Application Form, the Recommendation Form and the Scholarship Recommendation Form. There is also an online admission portal on the school's OrangeApps student information system, linked from the Apply Now button on the homepage.
Money: the part the school does publish, and the part it does not
Canossa Lipa publishes its scholarship structure in unusual detail and its tuition not at all. That combination is awkward, because a percentage discount tells you nothing until you know the base.
Academic scholarships
| Grant | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Venerable Fernanda Riva Scholarship | 75% free tuition, free extra fees, free other school fees |
| St. Joseph Scholarship | 75% free tuition |
| St. Anne Scholarship | 40% free tuition |
Non-academic scholarships
- St. Magdalene of Canossa Scholarship
- Mother Luigia Grassi Scholarship
- Dives Misericordia (discounts)
- Kinesthetic Scholarship (sports)
Government programmes
- Educational Service Contracting (ESC) for junior high school
- School Voucher Program for senior high school
The school says the benefits of the non-academic grants are discussed by HRC personnel rather than published, so treat those as a conversation, not a rate card. The ESC and voucher amounts are set nationally, not by the school, and our guide to senior high school scholarships covers how those work and what they are worth.
Note the eligibility fence: scholarship requirements at Canossa Lipa are stated for Grades 7 and 11 only. If your child is entering Grade 2 or Grade 9, there is no published academic grant to apply for. Grants are announced in December each school year to elementary school graduates in Lipa and neighbouring towns, and the forms are secured from the HRC-Testing Center.
What the scholarship application asks for
Academic track
- Certificate of ranking showing Top 1 or Top 2
- Copy of at least second-quarter grades or the final grades for the current year — Grade 6 grades for incoming Grade 7, Grade 10 grades for incoming Grade 11
- Scholarship Recommendation Form completed by the adviser, principal or guidance counsellor
- Scholarship exam
Non-academic track
- A letter of application addressed to the School Directress stating the family's financial status, the parents' employment, and the number of siblings, naming any already studying at Canossa and their grade levels
- The same grade documents as the academic track
- Scholarship Recommendation Form
- Latest ITR if the parents are working, otherwise a certificate of indigence or a BIR certificate of non-filing of tax
- Scholarship exam
Both tracks sit an exam. Plan for it in the December to enrollment window rather than treating the scholarship as an afterthought once you are already admitted.
What the academic programme actually is
Beyond the standard DepEd subjects, the school publishes three things worth knowing about before you decide.
STMEC, the Science and Technology-Mathematics Enriched Curriculum, is a four-year high school stream for students identified as gifted in maths and science. The published content runs from advanced mathematics and earth science, into microbiology and genetics for science and consumer mathematics and advanced statistics for maths, then biochemistry and analytical chemistry, then electricity with college algebra or advanced calculus. If your child is strong in these subjects, ask how students are selected into STMEC and whether selection happens at Grade 7 entry or later.
GTEP, the Gifted and Talented Education Program, covers English, Filipino, maths and science plus sports, music and art, and doubles as the training pool for quiz bees and outside competitions.
Remedial Education runs the other direction, for students with identified gaps in English and mathematics, with individualised instruction plus counselling sessions.
DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) is a daily reading block — forty minutes in grade school, sixty in high school.
Senior high offers STEM, ABM and HUMSS. All three are academic strands, so this is a university-feeder senior high rather than a TVL school. If you are still deciding between a strand and a technical path, our private versus public school comparison sets out the trade-offs, and other schools in Lipa are worth lining up alongside this one.
One thing to verify yourself
The school's homepage displays the PAASCU logo, but the site does not state an accreditation level, a programme, or a validity date anywhere. Checked in September 2026, PAASCU's public member database lists Canossa Academy Calamba, The Canossa School in Sta. Rosa and Canossa College in San Pablo City, but no entry for the Lipa school.
That is not proof of anything either way — databases lag, and applicant status is listed separately from member status. It does mean you should ask the school directly for its current accreditation standing, in writing, rather than reading the logo as a claim about level.
Two other things to confirm on the same call:
- Current DepEd government recognition for each level you are applying to
- Whether the strand or programme you want is actually opening this school year
Practical details
The campus is on Calle Arzobizpado, Barangay San Carlos, Lipa City 4217, Batangas. Published contacts are (043) 756-1819 and (043) 756-1329, with local 136 for form questions, and [email protected]. Enrollment windows are not published as fixed dates, so ask the Testing Center for this year's schedule and check it against the DepEd school calendar.
If cost is the deciding factor, the honest sequence is: get the fee schedule in writing first, then work out which scholarship or government grant you actually qualify for, then compare. A 40 percent discount on an unknown number is not a plan.
Sources
- Canossa Academy Lipa — Be a Canossian, application requirements (calc.edu.ph)
- Canossa Academy Lipa — Scholarship Grants (calc.edu.ph)
- Canossa Academy Lipa — Senior High School Program (calc.edu.ph)
- Canossa Academy Lipa — Science and Technology-Mathematics Enriched Curriculum (calc.edu.ph)
- Canossa Academy Lipa — The Special Programs (calc.edu.ph)
- Canossa Academy Lipa — School History (calc.edu.ph)
- Canossa Academy Lipa — Downloadable Forms and Contact Us (calc.edu.ph)
- PAASCU — Member Database (paascu.org.ph/member-database/), checked September 2026
