Factors affecting university entrants’ performance in high-stakes tests: a multiple regression analysis Chin Uy 1 • Ronaldo A. Manalo 1 • Ronaldo R. Cabauatan 1 Received: 23 October 2014 / Revised: 2 September 2015 / Accepted: 3 October 2015 / Published online: 16 October 2015 Ó Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2015 Abstract In the Philippines, students seeking admission to a university are usually required to meet certain entrance requirements, including passing the entrance examinations with questions on IQ and English, mathematics, and science. This paper aims to determine the factors that affect the performance of entrants into business programmes in high- stakes test. Three groups of factors were considered: per- sonal, family, and school factors. A total of 1,057 freshmen enrolled in a business college in academic year 2013–2014 answered a researcher-developed instrument to capture data, which were analysed using multiple regression analysis. Academic library use, reading, and involvement in extra- curricular activities among the personal factors; family size, socio-economic status, and parental involvement among the family factors were found to have significant relationship with entrance test results. As to school factors, the type of school affects entrants’ performance in the test. Keywords High stakes tests Á Personal factors Á Family factors Á School factors Á Multiple regression analysis Introduction High-stakes test is used in making important decisions in the career of a student. Specifically, university admission examinations, as a form of high-stakes test, are used in many countries as the sole determinant in the students’ entry to the tertiary level or as an important component of admission to a university. In the USA and in China, passing either the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or the American College Testing (ACT) (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2008) and the National College Entrance Examination (gaokao) (Cockain 2011), respectively, is a requirement for entrants to the tertiary level. The SAT has often been branded as a ‘‘wealth test’’ since it is claimed to measure family socio-economic status more than academic potential (Dixon-Roma ´n et al. 2013; Guinier 2002 as cited in Zwick and Green 2007, p. 1). Evidently in China, high- stakes test is also clouded by claim of bias towards the elite (Chunlin 2005 and Davey et al. 2007 as cited in Coates et al. 2010, p. 16). As demand for university education increases, the issue on how the admission examinations screen applicants has become more pronounced. Most higher education institu- tions require an applicant to sit in the entrance examina- tions during their final year in the secondary level. Applicants are usually admitted based solely on their per- formance in the entrance examinations. The Commission on Higher Education of the Philippines reported that in the academic year 2011–2012, more than 70 % of the tertiary institutions were private schools that got no subsidy from the government. Public or state-owned universities are not capable of accepting all graduates of the public secondary schools, since they are few in number. Thus, most of the secondary school graduates prefer to apply with the private tertiary institutions. To screen applicants, tertiary institutions, both public and private, set their own admission requirements. For instance, the University of the Philippines (UP), a state university, requires an applicant to sit for the UP College Admission Test (UPCAT). Other top universities such as the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), De La Salle University & Chin Uy doc_cuy@yahoo.com 1 Research Center for Culture, Education, and Social Issues, College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines 123 Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. (2015) 16:591–601 DOI 10.1007/s12564-015-9395-4