Short answer: any of them. CHED Memorandum Order No. 105, series of 2017 says in plain words 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. There is no CHED rule that reserves engineering for STEM completers, accountancy for ABM completers, or anything else for anyone. What a Sports Track background changes is not what you are allowed to take. It changes which degrees you will start with a head start in, and which ones you will have to catch up in.
This guide covers what the Sports Track actually teaches, which college programs genuinely build on it, which of those end in a PRC licence and which do not, and what the track does not do for you.
First, a naming correction
Sports is a track, not a strand. Under the original K to 12 Senior High School structure, DepEd ran four tracks, and Sports was one of them, sitting alongside the Academic track, which is where the named strands like STEM, ABM and HUMSS lived. Sports had specialised subjects directly under it rather than strands.
That matters for a second reason. Under the Strengthened Senior High School Program, established by DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026, Senior High School is reorganised into two tracks, Academic and Technical-Professional. Sports is no longer a track at all. Its subjects have been folded into the Sports, Health and Wellness cluster of electives under the Academic track.
So depending on which school year a student entered Grade 11, "sports strand" can mean two different things. Both are covered below. For the wider structural change, see our Strengthened SHS Curriculum guide, and for how the old tracks and strands fit together, see the tracks and strands explainer.
What the Sports Track teaches
DepEd's own Sports Track page lists these specialised subjects:
| Subject |
|---|
| Safety and First Aid |
| Human Movement |
| Fundamentals of Coaching |
| Sports Officiating and Activity Management |
| Fitness, Sports and Recreation Leadership |
| Psychosocial Aspects of Sports and Exercise |
| Fitness Testing and Basic Exercise Programming |
| Practicum (in-campus) |
| Work Immersion, Research, Career Advocacy or Apprenticeship (off-campus) |
Under the Strengthened SHS Program, DepEd lists the Sports, Health and Wellness electives as Exercise and Sports Programming, First Aid, Fundamentals of Basic Life Support, Human Movement 1 (Basic Anatomy in Sports and Exercise), Human Movement 2 (Motor Skills Development), Physical Education 1 (Fitness and Recreation), Physical Education 2 (Sports and Dance), Sports Activity Management, Sports Coaching, and Sports Officiating. There is also an In-Campus Field Exposure for Sports subject under the Field Experience cluster.
The overlap is obvious: anatomy and movement, first aid, coaching, officiating, event management, fitness programming. Those are the specific things a Sports background gives you, and they are the lens for reading the college list below.
Degrees that build directly on it
BS Exercise and Sports Sciences
The closest fit. CHED Memorandum Order No. 81, series of 2017 sets the policies, standards and guidelines for this program. Under that order the degree is called Bachelor of Science in Exercise and Sports Sciences (BSESS), it is a four-year program, and it has two areas of specialisation: Fitness and Sports Coaching and Fitness and Sports Management.
CMO 81 lists the careers it prepares graduates for. For the coaching major: exercise and sport specialist working in national sports associations, government organisations and scholastic or professional sports programs; fitness and sports program specialist in community sports and wellness; strength and conditioning specialist; corporate and commercial fitness practitioner. For the management major: fitness and recreation leader or consultant; sports, fitness and wellness facilities manager; sports, fitness and recreational events manager; sports tourism officer in local government; and fitness, sports and recreation entrepreneur.
CMO 81 also notes that the coaching major is a standalone degree that complements coaching licensure or certification accredited by international and national sports governing bodies, and fitness certifications from reputable organisations in the field. In other words the degree does not replace those certifications, and the certifications do not replace the degree.
Not every school uses the BSESS name. Some confer a Bachelor of Sports Science or a Bachelor of Physical Education with a sports specialisation, and the content differs. Our BS Sports Science guide covers why the naming is inconsistent.
Bachelor of Physical Education
CHED Memorandum Order No. 80, series of 2017 covers this one. Under CMO 80 the program is called Bachelor of Physical Education (BPEd), and the order is explicit that PE is both a discipline and a teaching profession. The careers CMO 80 lists are physical education teacher in basic education, dance and sports club moderator, and school-based sports program and events moderator or coordinator.
The practical difference from BSESS is the licence. BPEd is a teacher education degree, so graduates sit the licensure examination for teachers administered by the Board for Professional Teachers. BSESS is not a teacher education degree and has no licensure examination attached.
The licensed health professions
If you want to work with athletes clinically, these are the routes, and each one has a Professional Regulatory Board at PRC:
- Physical Therapy — rehabilitation, injury recovery, sports clinics
- Occupational Therapy — function and daily-living rehabilitation
- Nutrition and Dietetics — sports nutrition, team and institutional dietetics
- Medical Technology, Radiologic Technology and Nursing — the wider clinical side of sports medicine
These are demanding science programs. A Sports Track background gives you the anatomy and first-aid vocabulary, not the chemistry and biology depth, so expect the first two years to be heavy. That is a workload warning, not an eligibility bar.
Business, tourism and management routes
Sports Activity Management, Sports Officiating and the events side of the Sports Track map cleanly onto business and tourism degrees. Sports event management, venue management, sports marketing and sports tourism sit inside BS Business Administration, BS Tourism Management and BS Hospitality Management rather than in a separate sports degree. CMO 81 itself names sports tourism officer as a target career for the management major, so both routes exist.
Which of these has a board exam
This is the question that decides a lot of careers, so here it is directly. The Professional Regulation Commission publishes the list of its Professional Regulatory Boards, and there is no board for sports science, exercise science, fitness coaching or sports management. No PRC licensure examination exists for those. Graduates compete on the degree plus sport-specific certifications.
| Degree | PRC licensure exam |
|---|---|
| BS Exercise and Sports Sciences | None |
| Bachelor of Sports Science | None |
| Bachelor of Physical Education | Yes, via the Board for Professional Teachers |
| BS Physical Therapy | Yes |
| BS Occupational Therapy | Yes |
| BS Nutrition and Dietetics | Yes |
| BS Tourism or Hospitality Management | None |
| BS Business Administration | None |
No board exam does not mean no career. It means nobody can stop you practising for lack of a licence, and it also means employers screen you on experience and certifications instead. For the full picture of which degrees are regulated, see our list of courses with board exams.
What the Sports Track does not give you
It does not lock you out of anything. That is CMO 105, quoted above.
It does not guarantee admission either. CMO 105 also says that Grade 12 graduates may enrol in any higher education program subject to the admission requirements of the admitting higher education institution. Entrance exams, quotas and grade cut-offs still apply, and competitive programs still reject applicants from every track.
It does not create a bridging entitlement. CMO 105 contains no requirement that schools give catch-up classes to students whose track does not match their chosen degree. Some universities do offer bridging or remedial subjects; that is an institutional decision, not a national rule. Ask the registrar whether they exist, whether they are credited, and whether they are charged separately, before you enrol.
It does not qualify you as a coach or trainer on its own. The Sports Track is Senior High School. Coaching accreditation and fitness certification come from sports governing bodies and certifying organisations, and CMO 81 treats those as separate from the degree.
It does not come with an athletic scholarship. Athletic scholarships are awarded by individual colleges under their own athletics programs, with their own tryouts and retention rules. Students from any track can compete for them.
How to choose from here
Work backwards from the job, not forwards from the track.
If you want to teach PE, take BPEd and plan for the teacher licensure exam. If you want to train athletes or run fitness programs, BSESS with the coaching major, plus certifications, is the direct route. If you want to run leagues, venues or sports events, the management major or a business or tourism degree fits better than a science-heavy one. If you want to treat injuries, it is Physical Therapy or Occupational Therapy, and you should start rebuilding your science foundation now.
If none of those appeal, take the degree you actually want. Nothing in the Sports Track background prevents it, and our what strand should I take guide walks through the reverse question if you or a sibling are still choosing.
One last practical note: because DepEd is mid-transition between the old track structure and the Strengthened SHS Program, the name printed on a Senior High School record varies by cohort and school. Colleges are used to this. What admissions offices read is the subjects and grades, not the track label.
Sources
- CHED CMO No. 105, s. 2017 - Policy on the Admission of Senior High School Graduates to the Higher Education Institutions, effective AY 2018-2019 (official PDF)
- CHED CMO No. 81, s. 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Science in Exercise and Sports Sciences (official PDF)
- CHED CMO No. 80, s. 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Physical Education (official PDF)
- DepEd - K to 12 Senior High School Sports Track
- DepEd - Strengthened SHS Program
- DepEd - DO 017, s. 2026, Strengthened Senior High School Curriculum
- Professional Regulation Commission - Professional Regulatory Boards
