Association between scores in high school, aptitude and achievement exams and early performance in health science college

This retrospective study was carried out to assess the correlation between admi­ssion criteria to health science colleges, namely, final high school grade and Saudi National Apti­tude and Achievement exams, and early academic performance in these colleges. The study inclu­ded 91 male students studying in the two-year pre-professional program at the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Records of these students were used to extract relevant information and their academic performance (based on the grade point average achieved at the end of the first semester of the pre-professional program), which were analytically studied. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to assess the associa­tions between the different scores. SPSS statistical program (version 12.0) was used for data ana­lyses. We found a strong correlation between the academic performance and the Achievement Exam, Aptitude Exam and high school final grade, with Pearson Correlation Coefficients of 0.96, 0.93, 0.87, respectively. The Saudi National Achievement Exam showed the most significant correla­tion. Our results indicate that academic performance showed good correlation with the admission criteria used, namely final high school grade, Saudi National Aptitude and Achievement Exams.