Students admission grades and their performance at Ibadan University pre-clinical MBBS examinations.

OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study was to examine the admission grades in Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) and Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) Examinations in relation to their performance at the pre-clinical class, at the University of Ibadan medical school. A descriptive, cross sectional study was carried out from December 1998-April 1999. Records of students' admitted into the medical school in 1991/92 session were studied. The results showed a stronger correlation in the performance of the students at the 100 level examination and the Part 1 MBBS examination with the SSCE grades than their JAMB scores. Students admitted on merit according to JAMB scores performed averagely better than their other counterpart with lower JAMB scores. This result demonstrated that the SSCE scores are a better predictor of performance at preclinical MBBS examination than the JAMB scores. More attention needs to be placed on the quality of SSCE scores during admission into the medical school.