Impact of admission grade point average on academic results of university students in electrical engineering

This work analyzes the impact of admission grade point average (AGPA) on academic results of electrical engineering university students throughout their undergraduate studies. The analysis was carried out on two bachelor engineering degree programs offered at the School of Telecommunication Engineering at the Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena, Spain: Telecommunication Systems Engineering and Telematics Engineering. Data from seven consecutive academic years were used to compute three indicators regarding the same cohort of students: exam attendance rate, success rate, and performance rate. The results show that although there exists a significant correlation between AGPA and student performance, it is truly relevant only in the first two academic courses (in this work, a course is assumed to be the compilation of all subjects in a year). In view of the results, a set of guidelines is proposed in order to soften the impact of AGPA on the progress of university students.