It has been called the student’s secret weapon. Call it “BS-ing”, pambobola, whatever—many graduates of the Ateneo will readily admit to having done it at one time or another. But for sophomore creative writing major Emil Hofileña, this practice is no longer something he feels compelled to carry out.

“After a year with Sir DM Reyes, I never want to go back to pulling [stuff] out of thin air,” says Hofileña, an alumnus of the Ateneo’s Merit English program, referring to his professor.

Though the Merit English and other subsections of the Loyola School’s Advanced Placement Program (APP) have had their fair share of criticism, many alumni like Hofileña believe the APP to be the most formative experience of their freshman year.

Echoing these sentiments, sophomore psychology major Giliana Roxas says, “Studying Filipino with Sir [Aristotle] Atienza lets me see the world in a whole new way. It just isn’t the same anymore.” Roxas is currently undergoing the final portion of her stint in Honors Filipino, another subsection of the APP program. In addition, Roxas also finished the Merit English program last school year under Maximo Pulan Jr.

Designed to push the boundaries of students’ learning, the APP is a program that caters to students who have shown mastery in certain subjects. Aside from the English and Filipino programs, the APP also has courses in Foreign Language and Culture (FLC) including Spanish, French, Italian and German, to name a few.

However, questions surrounding the APP persist among several Ateneans today. As a program that selects its participants on the basis of proficiency and skill, the APP is effectively segregating students.

It should come as a surprise to no one, then, that there is a certain aura of mystery surrounding the program. This has led to a fair amount of controversy, with many students questioning the criteria behind the selection process itself. Hence, it is fair to ask, “How does one qualify for the APP in the first place?”

Qualifying for the APP

It is inevitable that individual students will have varying degrees of preparedness for college-level classes. “We designed a core curriculum for the average student. But there are students that will always be above average, just as there will always be students below average,” says Acting Loyola Schools Vice President Rudy Ang.

It is precisely to accommodate the needs of above average students that the APP was instituted. “We want them to have the opportunity to take other things and advance their knowledge and learning,” Ang says. “Students who are already ahead of the others are pushed to move even further ahead, so that the curriculum doesn’t hold them back.”

“Primarily, the basis for who gets into Merit, Regular, and Basic [English] would be the score that people obtain from the [college] entrance exam,” says English Department Chair DM Reyes, PhD.

The raw scores from the language component of the Ateneo College Entrance Test (ACET) are clustered together and ranked, with the top 10% of scorers gaining admission into the Merit program, Reyes elaborates.

For Honors Filipino, on the other hand, the process is slightly different. Since there is no Filipino language component in the ACET, the Filipino Department administers a diagnostic test at the start of every school year. Every student who reaches a certain cut-off score is then invited into the program, says Aristotle Atienza, the current instructor of Filipino 14 Section H.C., which stands for “Honors Class.”

The sophomores in Section H.C. are the pioneer batch of the Filipino Honors Program. The section was initially composed of 21 students, but is now down to 15 due to scheduling conflicts. This year’s new set of Filipino Honors students is slightly larger, though, with 23 students. According to the list of class schedules in the Ateneo Integrated Student Information System, this year’s H.C. has 35 free slots available, though not all slots were filled. This is because of both scheduling conflicts and because not enough students reached the cut-off score to qualify.

As for the APP for FLC, admission is conferred upon students who already have a background in their chosen FLC. For instance, if a student comes from a high school where Mandarin is a part of the curriculum, he or she is automatically elevated to a higher track of the program should he or she choose Mandarin during enlistment.

Alumni perception

Beyond the statistics provided by their professors, Hofileña and Roxas have their own views on the differences between Regular and Merit classes. Hofileña, who was able to sit in a Regular English class, recounts his experience under Carlo Rivera. “I found the lecture itself to be limited, in the sense that Sir Carlo was leading them in a certain direction,” Hofileña says, referencing the standardized curriculum accorded to Regular classes. “With Sir DM, he takes us in his own direction, instead of one that is standardized or objective.”

The lesson proper wasn’t the only difference Hofileña noticed while sitting in—the students were different as well. “The first two rows, those were the ones who were really listening and participating in the lecture. In the last two rows, though, the students didn’t really care. They probably had no idea what was going on during the lecture. I think if you put the students in the last two rows in a DM class, they’d still stay the same either way.”

“What I find really different from the stories I hear about regular Filipino classes and our class is that everyone’s voice is heard in our class. I really like it that everyone is able to share their own view. It’s a lot more like a casual conversation than a boring lecture,” says Roxas.

Roxas compares her conversational experiences in Honors Filipino to her experiences in high school where only a handful of her peers would participate in class discussions. From the stories she’s heard, her high school experiences parallel that of a Regular Filipino class.

“Aside from the speed we take analyzing texts, I think our [APP] curriculum is close to the one which the regular sections take. I think [it is] the liberties Sir Atienza takes with the [Honors Class] where everyone participates [that] sets us apart.”

As noted by both Hofileña and Roxas, the difference between the advanced and regular programs is not merely limited to changes in the curriculum. Rather, the difference lies more in the innovative ways professors teach advanced classes, as well as the heightened participation of their students.

Towards the future

The Filipino Department is looking to address the scheduling conflicts that have prevented a number of students from taking Filipino Honors. According to Atienza, one such proposal that’s currently being discussed is the creation of three different honors sections, each with different time slots. This should minimize the chances of scheduling conflicts and increase the number of students who with access to the APP.

For the most part, however, the Loyola Schools administration is content with the way the APP is structured, and there are no plans to make major changes in the immediate future. “The policies you’re seeing now have developed over time, and of course we’re happy to hear suggestions in terms of how to improve the program even more,” Ang says.

Ultimately, Reyes says that the APP is built on the foundation of one of the Ateneo’s mantras, cura personalis. “Personal care isn’t just limited to settling with what you have when you can be so much more,” he says. “It is the school’s responsibility to test your limits and find the program that fits you best. That’s where cura personalis and your own personal formation come in.”

Rather than serve as a venue for stratification, the Humanities program of the Ateneo has been proven to provide a program tailored to each student’s talents and passions through the APP. With minor improvements slated for the near future, the School of Humanities is eager to continue their individualized and formative campaign for quality education.