SCC - Student Profile: BoGG; Academic Progress

Research and Planning

Student Profile: BoGG; Academic Progress

Academic Progress. Considering only the 50 "new" students (i.e., those who matriculated in Fall 2003 or Spring 2004), it is helpful to regard the distribution of semester units attempted, units completed and grade point average (GPA). These student measures could be used in implementing an "early alert" intervention strategy that seeks to identify students who may be at risk of developing academic problems. In evaluating these data, however, it must be remembered that courses taken by "credit/no credit" do not count towards semester units attempted (i.e., will not affect GPA) and only affect semester units completed if a grade of "credit" (i.e., "CR") is earned. Similarly, dropping a class (either by early withdrawal with no grade of record or with a grade of "W") eliminates semester units attempted and, naturally, semester units completed. Therefore, a student who has enrolled for credit during a term may end up with zero units attempted and zero units completed if s/he enrolled "credit/no credit" and earned a grade of "NC" (no credit), or dropped all courses — or did a combination of both.

Term	Units	Attempted n	%	Completed n	%	GPA	n	%
Fall 2003	0.0	4	21.1%	7	36.8%	0.00	7	36.8%
	0.5-2.5	1	5.3%	0	0.0%	0.001-0.999	2	10.5%
	3.0-5.5	2	10.5%	2	10.5%	1.000-1.999	2	10.5%
	6.0-8.5	3	15.8%	3	15.8%	2.000-2.999	5	26.3%
	9.0-11.5	2	10.5%	2	10.5%	3.000-3.999	2	10.5%
	12.0+	7	36.8%	5	26.3%	4.000	1	5.3%
	Totals	19	100.0%	31	100.0%		19
Spring 2004	0.0	11	35.5%	12	38.7%	0.00	16	51.6%
	0.5-2.5	2	6.5%	4	12.9%	0.001-0.999	2	6.5%
	3.0-5.5	8	25.8%	5	16.1%	1.000-1.999	3	9.7%
	6.0-8.5	4	12.9%	5	16.1%	2.000-2.999	5	16.1%
	9.0-11.5	2	6.5%	1	3.2%	3.000-3.999	5	16.1
	12.0+	4	12.9%	4	12.9%	4.000	0	0.0%
	Totals	31	100.0%	31	100.0%		31
	0.0	15	30.0%	19	38.0%	0.00	23	46.0%
	0.5-2.5	3	6.0%	4	8.0%	0.001-0.999	4	8.0%
	3.0-5.5	10	20.0%	7	14.0%	1.000-1.999	5	10.0%
	6.0-8.5	7	14.0%	8	16.0%	2.000-2.999	10	20.0%
	9.0-11.5	4	8.0%	3	6.0%	3.000-3.999	7	14.0%
	12.0+	11	22.0%	9	18.0%	4.000	1	2.0%
	Totals	50	100.0%	50	100.0%		50

A student’s first semester can be important in setting the student "on track" towards academic success. Looking only at the first semester activity for those students with earned grades of record and who matriculated either in Fall 1996 (n = 19) or Spring 1997 (n = 31), it is evident that just under one-third (15 or 30%) of this group completed no units during their first terms, just over one-fourth (13 or 26%) completed less than 6 units, and a small fraction less than half (22 or 44%) completed 6 or more units.

Office of Research and Planning
Robert J. Simas, Director
Jennifer Finch, Technician

Last Updated: April 12, 2005
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