Shifting Out of STEM: What Your Options Are

There are two completely different questions hiding behind "shifting from STEM", and they have different answers.

The first is: I took the STEM strand in Senior High School and I do not want a STEM degree. That one is easy. You are not shifting anything, because the strand never bound you in the first place.

The second is: I am already enrolled in an engineering, computer science, nursing or other STEM degree and I want out. That one is real, and it is governed almost entirely by your own university's rules rather than by any national policy.

This guide takes them in that order.

If you are leaving STEM before college even starts

CHED Memorandum Order No. 105, series of 2017 is short enough to quote. It states that all Grade 12 graduates beginning Academic Year 2017-2018 are eligible to enter college regardless of the track or strand taken in Senior High School, that no Grade 12 student or graduate shall be denied acceptance in applying for college entrance examinations, and that Grade 12 graduates may enrol in any higher education program subject to the admission requirements of the admitting higher education institution.

That is the whole rule. There is nothing to appeal, no bridging requirement to trigger, no letter to write. A STEM completer applying to AB Communication, BS Accountancy, BS Tourism Management or Bachelor of Elementary Education is simply an applicant.

Two practical notes.

STEM is rarely a disadvantage in admissions. Most college entrance exams are general aptitude tests covering language, mathematics and reading rather than strand-specific content. Heavy math and science in Grade 11 and 12 tends to help on the quantitative sections regardless of the degree you are applying to.

The last clause of CMO 105 still bites. Admission remains subject to the school's own requirements. A quota program can still refuse you on entrance exam results, grades or interview. That is not a strand rule, it applies to everyone.

If you are still deciding rather than reversing, our what course to take in college guide works through the choice, and the STEM strand guide covers what the strand does and does not prepare you for.

If you are already inside a STEM degree

Here the honest answer is uncomfortable: CHED sets almost none of this. There is no memorandum order fixing a shifting GPA, a maximum number of shifts, or a rule on which subjects must be credited. Those are institutional decisions, protected by the academic freedom the Constitution grants higher education institutions and repeatedly deferred to in CHED's own issuances.

What national rules do exist come from the Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education, issued as CHED Memorandum Order No. 40, series of 2008. It governs private higher education institutions and sets the floor for records, credits and transfers. The relevant parts:

• A student who qualifies for enrolment is entitled to stay for the entire period expected to complete the program, except in cases of academic delinquency, violation of school rules, unsettled fees, certain health grounds, or closure of the program or school.
• A student shall earn academic credit only with a final grade of at least 75 per cent or its equivalent.
• No provisional, conditional or temporary final grade may be given. An incomplete mark may be given for excusable reasons such as sickness, emergency or accident, and in no case may an "INC" remain for more than one academic year.
• A graduating student may be allowed to carry not more than six academic units in excess of the normal load in the last school term.
• Cross-enrolment is discouraged, but may be allowed when a subject is not offered that term, when schedules conflict, or when the student spends the term in their home province, subject to the school's consent and provided the total load stays within the allowable units.

None of that tells you whether your department will take you. It tells you what the paperwork has to do once they decide.

What actually carries over

The reliable answer is general education.

CHED Memorandum Order No. 20, series of 2013 sets the general education curriculum at a minimum of 36 units: 24 units of core courses, 9 units of electives, and 3 units on the life and works of Rizal as mandated by law. Those eight core courses are the same eight whether you are in engineering or in education. You can see the effect in the program standards themselves. The Bachelor of Science in Nursing curriculum under CMO No. 15, series of 2017 totals 192 units and lists general education at exactly 36 units broken into 24, 9 and 3, with 14 more units for PE and NSTP. The Bachelor of Elementary Education curriculum under CMO No. 74, series of 2017 totals 152 units and lists the identical 36-unit general education block and the same 14 units of PE and NSTP.

So a student who has finished a year and a half of engineering usually walks into a non-engineering program carrying most of their general education, their PE, and their NSTP. What does not carry is the reason the first year was hard: calculus sequences, engineering drawing, chemistry for engineers, and the professional courses built on top of them. Those are credited only if the receiving program requires an equivalent, and the receiving department is the one that decides.

Ask the registrar for a written evaluation of credited units before you commit, not after. The difference between 45 units credited and 25 units credited is roughly a year of tuition.

The parts each school decides for itself

Published university guidelines show how wide the variation is, which is exactly why you cannot generalise.

UP Manila's Office of the University Registrar publishes application policies for shiftees, transferees and second degree applicants each academic year. Its guidelines separate shiftees within the same college from shiftees within the same constituent university, and separate both from transferees between constituent universities and transferees from other higher education institutions. For the first semester of AY 2026-2027, the guidelines require that students from a UP constituent university have passed at least 30 academic units and students from another university at least 33, counting only courses with final grades. The general weighted average required is then set per program, and the published cut-offs range widely between programs in the same university.

UP Diliman's College of Education publishes its own shiftee requirements: a general weighted average of 2.5 or better from UP Diliman units, at least 30 academic units earned, a letter of intent to the college secretary, a true copy of grades, an accomplished shifting or transfer application form, and reference reports from former professors, with a hard submission deadline.

Those are two units of one university system, and they already differ. Assume yours has its own rules, its own deadline, and its own quota, and that all three change per academic year.

The questions worth asking the registrar or college secretary, in this order:

1. What is the minimum number of units and the GWA for my target program this year?
2. Is there a quota, and how are applicants ranked?
3. When is the application window, and is it strict?
4. Which of my completed units will be credited, in writing?
5. Am I disqualified by leave of absence, AWOL, or a residency limit?
6. Does shifting reset my scholarship, and does it affect my free tuition eligibility?

Our shifting courses guide goes deeper on the mechanics of the process itself.

If your grades are the reason you are leaving

This is common and worth separating from a simple change of interest. If you are shifting because you are failing, two things are true at once.

Most shifting policies have a GPA floor, so failing grades work against you exactly when you need the option most. And most schools have retention rules that can remove you from a program regardless of whether you apply to leave it. The Manual of Regulations recognises academic delinquency as a ground on which a school may decline to re-enrol a student. Our guides on academic probation and retention and on back subjects and irregular status cover what that looks like in practice.

Act before the second failing semester rather than after it. A student with one bad term and a 2.5 average has options. A student who has been dropped from the program has fewer, and may be looking at transferring to another school instead of shifting inside the current one.

The routes people forget

Shifting to another bachelor program is not the only exit.

Transferring to another school. Sometimes the program you want is not offered where you are. The Manual of Regulations gives you the right to transfer provided you have no unsettled obligation and are not under suspension or expulsion, and it requires the transfer credential to be signed by the registrar and issued within two weeks of your application. Read our how to transfer schools guide before you file anything.

Ladderized programs. Some institutions structure programs so that technical-vocational qualifications and degree units connect, letting you exit with a recognised qualification and re-enter later.

Stopping, working, and coming back. Nothing in the rules forces a continuous four years. What does apply is your school's maximum residency rule, which is institutional and worth confirming in writing before you take a leave of absence.

The blunt version

If you are in Senior High School: you were never trapped, and CMO 105 says so.

If you are in a STEM degree: the national rules protect your records, your credits at 75 per cent and above, and your right to leave with your credentials. Everything that decides whether you actually get into the program you want, the units, the average, the quota and the deadline, is set by your own university and published by your own registrar. Get it in writing, early, before you spend another semester paying for units you will not use.

Sources

• CHED CMO No. 105, s. 2017 - Policy on the Admission of Senior High School Graduates to the Higher Education Institutions (official PDF)
• CHED CMO No. 40, s. 2008 - Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education (official PDF)
• CHED CMO No. 20, s. 2013 - General Education Curriculum (official PDF)
• CHED CMO No. 15, s. 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (official PDF)
• CHED CMO No. 74, s. 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Elementary Education (official PDF)
• University of the Philippines Manila, Office of the University Registrar - Application Policies for Shiftees, Transferees and Second Degree Applicants, First Semester AY 2026-2027 (official PDF)
• UP Diliman College of Education - Undergraduate Shiftees