By the mandate given to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the Board conducts selection examinations for placement of candidates into all Universities and Degree-awarding institutions in Nigeria. Since the scores of the Universities Matriculation Examination (UME) which the Board conducts annually form the major tool in the admission process, the expectation is that those who perform well in the UME will automatically perform well in the chosen field of interest in the universities and degree awarding institutions. However, research findings have proved that the prediction of a student's performance in first year university education may be influenced by factors such as year of examination, type of discipline, institution, gender, number of sittings to acquire minimum entry credits into Nigerian universities and degree awarding institutions. All candidates admitted into Nigerian universities through UME conducted in 1998, 1999, 2000 constituted the population of this study. Hierarchical Multiple Regression Correlation Analysis was used and tested.

The result of the study shows that the relationship between UME and FGPA varies with the discipline of interest, institution and number of sittings to obtain minimum entry requirements at p<0.01.