Introduction:

There are several factors associated with student’s academic success or failure among which high school attainment before enrolled to the medical school is included. The previous academic achievement of new students was evaluated by a diagnostic test that was used in the present work.

Objective:

To determine the correlation of academic performance in the courses of Anatomy, Cellular Biology and Medical Histology and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology vs eight topics from the diagnostic test by the high school’s origin.

Method:

Correlational study between the average grade in the evaluation of three first-year courses vs the diagnostic evaluation of 4716 students of four medical students’ classes. Correlations were determined by levels, from general to particular and by high school of origin.

Results:

Determining correlations by bachelors’ school of origin revealed that each of the eight subjects of the diagnostic exam presented high correlation values, which allows postulating regression models to predict students’ academic performance in the three courses reviewed.

Conclusions:

Approaching the study by high school allowed identifying the highest correlations and therefore generating regression models that could predict the probable academic performance of new students enrolled in the medical school. It was confirmed that the students with the highest probability of academic success are those with the most comprehensive background knowledge.