THE OFFICE of Admission and Aid (OAA) clarified that the new schedule for the Ateneo College Entrance Test (ACET), now slated for September 27 and 28, was a result of meetings in which they considered various situations that could affect the examination.
The OAA was forced to postpone the ACET in Luzon, originally scheduled for September 20 and 21, due to inclement weather during the weekend.
The OAA received negative feedback from within and outside the Ateneo community when it posted the new examination schedule on its official Facebook page on September 22.
The office was criticized for being “inconsiderate” since the new schedule for the ACET coincided with the entrance test for the University of Santo Tomas.
Assistant to the Director for Admissions Nenette Zabala said that the OAA considered the admission cycle, the deadlines, the traffic concerns, the availability of those involved in the ACET and the events scheduled in the campus in deciding for the new schedule.
“The September 27 and 28 schedule is really the best possible option given everything,” she said.
“We have administered the ACET several times when it was raining, but we [did not have] to cancel it [before] because, as much as possible, we really like to push through with it. It was that we were forced to postpone [the examination this time],” Zabala added.
The ACET in Visayas and Mindanao were administered on the original schedule, however.
Options
On September 23, OAA posted a list of other rescheduling options considering those who cannot take the examination on the prior alternate schedule.
The examinees could choose to take the ACET on October 4 of this year or January 17, 2015.
According to Zabala, examinees may request for their preferred schedule by sending a letter to OAA Director Jumela Sarmiento, PhD on or before September 25.
“There’s no need to worry. We have provided options and procedures for requesting change in [the] ACET schedule. These will be reviewed and we already have a system in place [for] this, so there’s no need to worry,” Zabala said.
She added that the rescheduling will not cause any changes in the availability of courses.
“In terms of availability of courses, there’s no need to worry because all these are factored in the computation of number of people to accept,” she said.
