Students’ Activities in a Pre-matriculation Course as a Predictor of Initial Academic Performance in Medical School

Medical schools offer pre-matriculation courses to prepare incoming students for medical school. Although numerous programs exist, little data has been presented to show improvement in outcomes. The Summer Pre-matriculation Course (SPC) was designed to include instruction in basic sciences and terminology. In addition to SPC grades, student survey responses and students’ grades in Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms (MCM), a semester 1 course, were used for statistical analysis. We have determined that students who attended the SPC did not outperform other students during the MCM course. Positive correlations were found to exist between the final grade in MCM and student’s grade both in SPC and on the baseline exam. We also found that students who indicated that they generally study less than fellow students to achieve the same results were more likely to have lower final scores in MCM. These results lead us to believe that no significant academic advantage is gained by SPC attendants. We did, however, identify data points that may be indicators of future performance and may be useful in identifying “at risk” students within the SPC.