If you are searching for the name of Silliman University's entrance exam, the honest answer is that there is not one in the way there is a UPCAT or an ACET. Silliman's published admission requirements screen new applicants on their Grade 12 general average first, and then apply a Qualifying Examination and an interview to a specific list of programmes. Which list you fall into decides how hard your application is.
That is a genuinely different model from most large Philippine universities, and it changes how you should prepare. There is no single test date to build a year around. There is a report card that has to hit a number, and for some programmes a departmental screen after that.
This post covers the grade thresholds, the programme lists, the document set, and the payment and enrolment milestones Silliman publishes. The campus details, contacts and profile live on our Silliman University page, and the programme list is in our Silliman courses offered guide.
The grade thresholds, exactly as Silliman states them
New applicants — high school or senior high school graduates, students in their final year of secondary education applying to college for the first time, and people who finished senior high but never enrolled anywhere — submit a complete Grade 12 report card (Form 138 or SF9) showing a general average of at least 80 percent, plus a photocopy of the Grade 11 report card.
Then the exceptions stack on top:
| Requirement | Programmes |
|---|---|
| General average of at least 85 percent | Accountancy, Architecture, Engineering |
| General average of at least 85 percent | English, Computer Studies, Literature, Medical Technology, Nursing, Nutrition and Dietetics, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Public Affairs and Governance |
| Qualifying Exam and interview | Accountancy, Architecture, Engineering, Nursing, Nutrition and Dietetics, Physical Therapy, Environmental and Marine Sciences |
| Interview only | Medical Technology, Sociology, Anthropology, Geology, Biology |
| Passing score in the Qualifying Examination, interview possible | Other programmes, as required by pertinent CHED memorandum orders and laws |
Read that table carefully, because the two 85 percent rows are separate lists in Silliman's own text and the overlap is not perfect. Medical Technology needs 85 percent and an interview but is not on the Qualifying Exam list. Environmental and Marine Sciences is on the Qualifying Exam list but not on either 85 percent list. English and Literature carry the same 85 percent bar as Nursing, which surprises most applicants.
The final row is the one that catches people out. Silliman reserves the right to require a Qualifying Examination for programmes not otherwise named, where a CHED memorandum order or a law demands it. In practice that means you should ask your target department whether a QE applies to you rather than assuming your programme is exempt because it is not on a list.
Silliman also tells applicants to have complete Grade 11 and Grade 12 report cards ready before starting the online application, and adds a note limiting Grade 12 to the first and second quarters at application stage. The requirement list elsewhere on the same page asks for the complete Grade 12 card. If your grades are still in progress, that is a question for the Admissions Office rather than something to guess at.
The documents
For a new applicant, Silliman asks for originals of:
- Complete Grade 12 report card (Form 138 / SF9) meeting the general average for your programme, plus a photocopy of the Grade 11 report card
- Certificate of good moral character from the school last attended
- Certificate of good moral character from the community — Silliman gives a barangay certification, or one from a respectable member of the community who personally knows you, as examples
- Birth certificate — an official NSO or PSA copy, plus a certified true copy of the original
- One recent passport-size picture with a white background, with your complete name written on the back
- An official medical certificate issued by the university clinic at Silliman University Medical Center Foundation
Two of these deserve attention.
The community good moral certificate is a second, separate document from the school one. It is a small thing that is easy to leave until the last week, and barangay offices do not run on your timetable.
The medical certificate is not something you can bring in from your family doctor. Silliman's clinic issues it, and only after you have submitted a completed Medical History Form and Physician's Report — which any licensed physician may sign — along with results for chest X-ray, complete blood count, urinalysis and a dental examination. Those tests may be done at any accredited hospital, laboratory, diagnostic clinic or dental clinic. The certificate then goes to the Office of Student Services, which uses it to issue and validate your student ID.
If you are assembling documents for several universities at once, our college admission requirements checklist for the Philippines covers the items most schools share, and our entrance exam requirements checklist covers test-day items.
The application procedure
Silliman runs applications through an online portal and then asks for hard copies once a department has looked at you.
- Apply through the application portal at the university's admission site, fill out the online form and upload the required documents. Silliman asks that files be compressed to 2MB per file — a real constraint when you are photographing report cards.
- Review the application carefully before submitting.
- Check your status using the verification code emailed to you. Your application is initially assessed by the college or department, not by the Admissions Office.
- Submit the original hard copies and one set of photocopies of the complete requirements to the Admissions Office at the ground floor of Hibbard Hall, or send them by courier — but only once the department has approved your application.
- The Admissions Office does the final assessment, and a Notice of Acceptance with your Student ID number is emailed to you.
- Pay the down payment of P6,500.00 at the SU Business and Finance Office or through partner banks and payment centres, using your Student ID number as the reference on the transmittal slip.
- An "OK to enroll" notice appears in your mySilliman account once the payment posts to your ledger. You then choose a payment scheme for the balance of your tuition.
- Registration is complete only when your class schedule is reflected and an "Officially Enrolled" note appears on your dashboard.
- Complete the physical examination and submit the official medical certificate to the Office of Student Services for issuance and validation of your student ID.
The ordering in steps 3 and 4 is the part people get wrong. Do not courier your originals the day you submit online. Wait for the department to approve you, then send them.
Transferees
Silliman defines transfer applicants broadly: students who have done college work elsewhere and are applying to Silliman for the first time, and students who started at Silliman, moved to another school and now want back in. The category also covers applicants to the College of Law, the Medical School and the graduate programmes.
The document set swaps the report card for a certificate of transfer credential (honorable dismissal) and an informative copy of academic records signed by the registrar of the school last attended, and keeps both good moral certificates, the passport-size photo, the birth certificate and the clinic medical certificate.
On credits, Silliman's wording is worth quoting in substance: credits from accredited institutions are generally accepted provided the student obtained the minimum average grade required for the programme, but in some cases advanced credits will be accepted only upon passing a validating examination that usually covers English, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. Plan for the possibility of a validating exam rather than being surprised by one.
Juris Doctor applicants have one extra line item Silliman states explicitly: an official receipt for P150.00 paid at the Business and Finance Office under the Admissions Miscellaneous Account, for the Certificate of Eligibility for Admission — the approved CHED Form C-1.
Foreign applicants
Foreign students who completed secondary school abroad, or earned credits at colleges outside the Philippines, follow the same portal but with authenticated paperwork. Silliman asks for an apostilled academic record accompanied by an English translation, together with a detailed description of the courses taken and the credits earned. The records must be apostilled by the country where the document was issued.
There is also a non-refundable admission fee of US$100.00 payable to Silliman University, on top of the peso down payment.
On visas, Silliman states that a non-immigrant foreign student who is at least 18 years of age must apply for a student visa at the Bureau of Immigration sub-office in Dumaguete City, and that the Foreign Students' Desk at the Admissions Office assists with obtaining it once the student is enrolled. The student needs a valid passport with a valid authorised stay to process it.
What Silliman does not publish
- No Qualifying Examination coverage, format or passing score. The requirements page names the QE and says who has to take it. It does not say what is on it, how long it is, or what counts as passing.
- No fixed application deadline. The page is headed with the academic year it covers and describes a rolling portal-and-department process, not a single closing date.
- No published interview criteria. Departments interview for a long list of programmes without a published rubric.
- No slot counts. There is no public quota per programme.
For all of these, the Admissions Office at Hibbard Hall and the college or department you are applying to are the only reliable sources. Silliman's process routes the substantive decision to the department at step 3, so the department is where the real answers are.
What this means for planning
Because the first gate is your report card, the leverage in a Silliman application sits in Grade 11 and Grade 12, not in a cramming season before a test date. If you are aiming at Accountancy, Architecture, Engineering, Nursing, Pharmacy or one of the other 85 percent programmes, that number is the thing to protect.
Cost is the other half of the decision, and Silliman is a private university in Dumaguete with the fee structure that implies. Our Silliman University tuition fee guide is the better place to have that conversation than any single figure quoted on a forum.
Sources
- Silliman University, Admission Procedures and Requirements (Admissions SY 2026-2027) — https://su.edu.ph/admissions/admission-procedures/
- Silliman University, Medical History Form and Physician's Report for SHS and College Students (PDF) — https://su.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Medical-History-Form-and-Physicians-Report-for-SHS-and-College-Students.pdf
- Silliman University, Payment Options — https://su.edu.ph/costs/payment/
- Silliman University, Application Portal (ARIS) — https://aris.su.edu.ph/admission
