Predictive relationship between admission academic abilities and undergraduates’ academic achievement in Nigerian universities

This study aimed to determine the predictive relationship between admission academic abilities and subsequent undergraduates’ academic achievement in Nigeria. This research adopted an ex post facto descriptive design. The total population consisted of 282,834 students, while the target population comprised 72,062 undergraduates in the 200 level, and the sample size was 1,524 respondents through a multistage sampling procedure. At the point of admission, students whose scores ranged from 70% to 100% were 291 (22%), 60% to 69% were 484 (36%), 50% to 59% were 471 (35%), 45% to 49% were 69 (5%), and below 44% were 31 (2%). The same undergraduates, after admission, declined in academic achievement to 129 (10%) among the first class, 428 (32%) second class upper, 543 (41%) second class lower, 218 (16%) third class, and 17 (1%) pass category, while others were on probation. The analysis (F(2, 1345) = 0.934) revealed that undergraduates’ academic achievement was not significantly affected by admission academic abilities. The study recommended that undergraduates should work towards improving their academic achievement, as this will determine their future privileges. The government should encourage students to value education by improving employment opportunities for graduates, thereby fostering academic achievement in Nigeria.