Search for the CEU entrance exam and you will find confident write-ups giving it an acronym, an item count and a time limit. Then you read Centro Escolar University's own published procedure for incoming freshmen and there is no test in it at all — five steps, none of which is an exam.
Both things are true, and the difference matters. CEU does run an admissions test. It is named in CEU's own documents as the CEU College Admissions Test (CEU-CAT), and the procedures that actually route applicants through it are the ones for foreign applicants and Filipinos who studied abroad. Transferees go through a different screen again — a psychological examination and a drug test. If you are a Grade 12 student in a Philippine senior high school applying straight to CEU, the published path in front of you is document-based.
This guide walks each route as CEU publishes it. For the university's campuses, contacts and general profile, see our Centro Escolar University page.
Which route are you on?
CEU splits undergraduate admission into six tabs, each with its own procedure sheet:
| You are | CEU's category | Is there a test? |
|---|---|---|
| A Grade 12 student or SHS graduate in the Philippines | Incoming First Year Undergraduate / Freshman | Not in the published steps |
| Transferring in, or taking a second degree | Transferee / Second Degree | Psychological examination and drug test |
| Returning after stopping out | Returning Student | No — a letter, not a form |
| A foreign national entering as a freshman | Foreign Applicant (Incoming Freshman) | Entrance and Psychological Exam at the GCD |
| A foreign national transferring in | Foreign Applicant (Transferee / Second Degree) | Yes, per the foreign procedure |
| A Filipino who finished school abroad | Filipino Who Studied Abroad | CEU College Admissions Test (CEU-CAT) |
All six start at the same online admissions portal run by the Office of the University Registrar.
The freshman route: five steps
CEU's own sheet, headed "Steps in online application for incoming freshman", lists:
- Register via the CEU online admissions portal.
- Add the applicant picture and fill out the basic information.
- Sign the consent, waiver and declaration forms.
- Upload the Form 138 or Grade 11 / Grade 12 report card.
- Pay the admission fee, which is non-refundable, through On Campus payment, Paybiz or Paynamics rpf.
That is the entire published sequence. Three reminders sit underneath it, and they are the useful part:
- The reservation fee is non-refundable and deductible from tuition fees.
- If the School Dean or Program Head recommends a change of degree programme, the applicant will choose another degree programme as recommended.
- Original hard copies of required documents go to the Office of the University Registrar within the semester following your enrolment.
The second one is the sleeper. There is no test score gating your programme, but there is a human at the college who can redirect you, and the sheet frames that redirection as something you comply with rather than negotiate. If you are applying to a competitive health-science programme with borderline grades, that is the mechanism that will move you, not a cut-off score.
The third is a genuine deadline that people miss because it falls after they have already started classes. Uploading a scan gets you in; the originals still have to arrive.
Only one academic document is asked for at upload. If you are unsure whether what your school gave you is a Form 138 or something else, our guide to Form 137 vs Form 138 sorts that out.
Transferees and second-degree applicants: thirteen steps
This is the long one, and it is almost entirely in-person. CEU lists:
- Register via the online admissions portal.
- Upload your application photo, complete the online forms, and prepare your scholastic records or transcript of records for evaluation.
- Secure an endorsement form from the Admissions Office.
- Proceed to the Dean's Office or Program Head for evaluation and interview, subject to their availability.
- Schedule your psychological examination at the Guidance Office, then pay the corresponding fee at the Cash Department.
- Sit the psychological examination at the Guidance Office.
- Go to the Clinical Laboratory to schedule your drug test, then pay the drug testing fee at the Cash Department.
- Take the drug test at the Clinical Laboratory.
- Submit your test result to the Dean's or Program Head's Office.
- Return to the Admissions Department to complete and sign the necessary online forms, then select your payment plan via the Enrollment link.
- Claim your Certificate of Matriculation from the Dean's or Program Head's Office.
- Pay your tuition fees at the Cash Department or online.
- Complete post-enrolment steps — uniform, medical and dental exams, ID, CEU email, and submission of original copies of requirements.
Two things worth planning around. Step 4 is gated on a person's availability, which is not a queue you can shorten. And the screen at step 5 is psychological, not academic — it is not a test you revise for, and CEU does not publish what it covers or what result clears it.
If you are still deciding whether the move makes sense at all, our college transferee guide covers the credit-loss arithmetic and the paperwork on the outbound side.
Returning students: a letter, not an application
CEU's shortest procedure by a distance. Prepare a letter seeking readmission, signed by a parent or guardian, and send it by email to the Dean or Program Head, whose address is in the CEU website directory. That is it — no portal registration, no fee named, no test.
Foreign applicants and Filipinos who studied abroad: where the test lives
Here is where CEU's exam actually appears, and both procedures route through the Guidance and Counseling Department (GCD).
For a foreign incoming freshman, after registering, uploading requirements and securing an endorsement form, the sequence runs: registrar evaluation, Dean's interview, then GCD scheduling of the examination, then pay the Entrance and Psychological Exam at the Cash Department, take the exam at the GCD and collect the result on the release date, present the result to the Dean's office, then on to the Foreign Student Officer for foreign fees, the routing form for enrolment and student number activation, matriculation certificate, tuition, and post-enrolment steps.
For a Filipino who studied abroad, the sequence is the same shape but the payment step names the test outright: "Pay the CEU College Admissions Test (CEU-CAT) at the Cash Department." That is the closest thing to an official name for CEU's admissions test that appears anywhere in its published procedures.
Documents differ by status. Non-resident aliens submit a passport bio page photocopy, certificate of graduation and transcript of records. Resident aliens submit the same plus an ACR or I-Card. Filipinos who studied abroad submit a transcript of records.
What CEU does not publish for either route: the fee for the CEU-CAT or the Entrance and Psychological Exam, the test coverage, the number of items, the time limit, or any passing score. Numbers for those circulating on tutoring and listicle sites are not CEU's.
School of Medicine: NMAT and a hard CHED floor
The Doctor of Medicine programme is a separate application handled by CEU-SOM in Manila, by email rather than the undergraduate portal.
Regular applicants must be Filipino citizens holding a bachelor's degree or its equivalent, evidenced by a diploma and transcript of records. For graduates of Philippine private schools, the transcript must bear the CHED Special Order. Photocopies or soft copies suffice at application stage.
The admissions bar is stated in two parts and it is worth reading both:
- CEU-SOM asks for creditable performance in the NMAT with a percentile score equal to or higher than that prescribed by the Admission Committee, taken no more than two years before application.
- Separately, CEU-SOM states it strictly adheres to the CHED guideline that only applicants with an NMAT ranking of at least the 40th percentile may be accepted into a Philippine college of medicine.
So the 40th percentile is a national floor CEU applies, not CEU's own selection standard — the Admission Committee's prescribed score is what actually decides, and CEU does not publish it. Our guide to what NMAT scores mean explains how percentile ranking works and why a raw score tells you nothing on its own.
Alongside the NMAT report form, the application asks for a transcript or true copy of grades, a diploma or certificate of graduation, a certificate of general weighted average, a certificate of good moral character from the Dean or Office of Students with the school seal, a PSA certificate of live birth, and a 1.5 x 1.5 ID picture. Transfer applicants add course descriptions and clock hours from the previous school and honorable dismissal from the last medical school attended.
The application processing fee is ₱500, paid after CEU-SOM acknowledges your documents and issues your application, student or reference number, over the counter at Security Bank, Philtrust Bank or MLhuillier.
School of Law: a test that is not an academic exam either
CEU's School of Law and Jurisprudence, based in Makati, accepts holders of any bachelor's degree regardless of age, gender or religion. First-year applicants submit original transfer credentials or honorable dismissal, an original transcript with Special Order number marked "For further studies" or a certificate of graduation, original certificates of good moral character from the last school attended and from the applicant's company or barangay, a PSA-certified birth certificate, and four 1½ x 1½ ID pictures on a blue background.
The entrance examinations are listed as Psychological and Essay, every Saturday 8am to 4pm, testing fee 790, followed by an interview with the Admissions Committee. Transfer students add a Certificate of Eligibility for Admission Into the Law Course from their previous law school. Refresher, reviewee and audit applicants submit only a photocopied transcript, four ID pictures and a photocopied birth certificate.
The blue background on the ID pictures is a small detail that gets people sent back to the photo studio. Note it.
Scholarships are decided at entry, not applied for later
CEU runs entrance scholarships whose qualifications are set at the point of admission, which means the relevant preparation happened in senior high school rather than during the application.
The Upgraded Scholarship Program for Excellent Performance applies to students enrolling in a degree with a licensure examination, and its three tiers are keyed to class rank, class size and Grade 12 general weighted average — the Memorial tier requires graduating valedictorian of a class of at least 150 with a GWA of at least 96%, the Full tier at least 95%, the Partial tier salutatorian with at least 94%. Each tier carries a 100% discount on tuition and miscellaneous fees for one regular school year plus a monthly stipend and a tablet computer, and each requires passing the Dean's or Program Head's interview.
The Regular Entrance Scholarship applies to degrees without a licensure examination and runs on a smaller class-size threshold of at least 50, scaling from a 100% discount for a valedictorian with a GWA of at least 94% down through salutatorian, first, second and third honourable mention.
CEU also states a rule that catches people combining awards: only one scholarship or financial grant may be enjoyed by any student, and where you qualify for more than one, you take the more generous. If CEU is not your only option, how to get a scholarship in the Philippines covers the wider field.
What CEU does not publish
- No entrance test in the freshman procedure at all, and no statement of whether one exists for local freshmen in practice.
- No fee, coverage, item count, duration or passing score for the CEU-CAT.
- No fee for the transferee psychological examination or drug test — both are described as "the corresponding fee".
- No amount for the freshman admission fee or the reservation fee, only that both are non-refundable.
- No NMAT percentile of its own for the School of Medicine, beyond the CHED floor.
- No application deadlines on the undergraduate procedure sheets. The School of Medicine sheet carries dates; the undergraduate sheets carry only the school year.
Timing: read the school year, not a date
CEU labels its undergraduate procedure sheets by school year rather than by deadline, and the portal is the only live statement of whether applications are open. The School of Medicine runs the opposite way, publishing a long fixed window that opens roughly a year and a half before the intake and closes at the end of the preceding school year.
Do not plan around any date you read anywhere other than CEU's own portal and procedure sheets, including here. If CEU is one of several applications, our comparison of entrance exams in the Philippines shows what else falls in the same stretch, and our CEU tuition fee guide covers the cost side once you have a place.
Sources
- Admissions — undergraduate, graduate, medicine, senior high, law and scholarship entry points, and the full scholarships and grants list, Centro Escolar University
- Undergraduate admission procedures — the six applicant categories and their procedure sheets, including the freshman, transferee, foreign and Filipino-studied-abroad flows, Centro Escolar University
- School of Medicine — requirements and application procedure for new and transfer applicants, NMAT rule and processing fee, Centro Escolar University
- School of Law and Jurisprudence — admission guidelines, requirements, entrance examinations and scholarships, Centro Escolar University
- CEU Online Admissions portal, Office of the University Registrar, Centro Escolar University
