UST GARNERED perfect marks in the recent Physical Therapist and Occupational Therapist licensure examinations, while the College of Architecture was hailed the “best school” by the Board of Architecture for acing the government exams.
Physical therapy and occupational therapy programs both scored 100-percent passing rates, after seven physical therapy and four occupational therapy Thomasian examinees passed last month.
Topnotcher Selene Estavillo was the lone Thomasian in the top 10, leading 212 new physical therapists with a passing rate of 82.10 percent. Chatlynne Audrey Aguila (80.20 percent), Jessica Nepomuceno (78.20 percent), and Hyacinth Mae Tenorio (77.80 percent) placed second, fourth and fifth, respectively in the Occupational Therapy test.
Meanwhile, three Thomasians entered the top 10 of the Architecture board exams held last month.
Franco Lintag (85.20 percent), Michael Abuan (84.60 percent), and Jerold King (84.10 percent) clinched the fourth, seventh and 10th places, respectively, leading 120 other Thomasian examinees who passed the test. UST had a 77-percent passing rate.
The national passing rates for Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy dropped to 42.53 percent from last year’s 44.6 percent. Architecture had a 50.37-percent national passing rate, higher than last year’s 36 percent.
The Faculty of Pharmacy, meanwhile, slipped to a 54-percent passing rate from last year’s 78 percent.
Only 43 of 81 Thomasians who took the test passed the exam, with no one in the top 10. Last year, seven Thomasians placed first, second, third, fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth in the top 10.
Nursing exam schedule moved
Meanwhile, seven of eight Thomasians who took the November 2009 Nursing board exam passed, but none of them entered the top 10.
Nursing college secretary Elanore Lerma said the college’s “usual examination date is really June.”
“[Nursing] has an in-house review center, so at the first semester of the student’s senior year, they already have review sessions, enough to prepare them for June exams,” she said.
However, she expressed reservations on the movement of this year’s exam to July from June, saying this might affect the University’s performance in the board exams as some Nursing students take the course as preparatory to Medicine.
“If the exams will be in July, the students might lose their focus for their nursing review due to the strenuous demands of the medicine school,” she said.
In December 2008, Nursing had a 63-percent passing rate, with only one Thomasian in the top 10. Twelve out of 19 Thomasian examinees passed. This was in contrast to the 98-percent passing rate the college got in June last year when it had 26 Thomasians in the top 10. Cliff Harvey C. Venzon
