UST BECAME the second top-performing school in the June 2010 Pharmacy licensure examinations, with 89 percent of examinees passing the test.
Leading 241 new Thomasian pharmacists is Sannie Tan Ho who ranked fourth with his 90.28- percent score. Thessa Mia Rivera tied with Cedrix Cuaderno from University of the Philippines-Manila in the seventh place with a score of 89.58 percent, while David Creony Javier ranked eighth with an 89.48 mark.
“I was expecting a much higher passing rate and more Thomasians in the top 10 since [in this batch], there were two magna cum laudes and eight cum laudes who took the exam,” said Dean Priscilla Torres of the Faculty of Pharmacy.
This year’s passing rate of 89 percent is higher than last year’s 88.65 percent. The national passing rate was 68 percent, also higher than the previous year’s 59 percent.
Saint Louis University-Baguio, with a passing rate of 97 percent, emerged as the top performing school.
Last year, seven Thomasians entered the top 10, but UST was not one of the top performing schools.
Meanwhile, in the Architecture licensure examination, Astin Lee ranked ninth with a score of 84 percent.
“No university qualified as the top-performing school because now the school must have at least 50 examinees, and its passing rate should be at least 80 percent,” said John Joseph Fernandez, dean of the College of Architecture.
The new policy was also applied to the Pharmacy licensure exams.
Architecture posted 73- percent passing rate, which translated to 240 passers out of 330 who took the test.
According to Fernandez, the Professional Regulation Commission changed the third part of the exam from a drafting design (drawing) to a non-drafting design (multiple choices).
“Students were not able to immediately cope with the changes so the passing rate went down by three percent compared to last January’s 76-percent passing rate,” Fernandez said.
The national passing rate was 49.55 percent, slightly lower than last year’s 50.37 percent.
“The forte of UST is design translated into drawing, not theories,” Fernandez added. Kalaine Nikka Kay C. Grafil
