The correlation between GPA and percent effort on the Guaranteed 4.0 Plan

Beginning with spring 2005, the academic scholarship students in three programs have been introduced to the Guaranteed 4.0 Plan designed by Donna O. Johnson. The students are given specific assignments on the 4.0 Plan to encourage them to organize their time and to use it more effectively. The academic performance of the two freshman NACME scholars cohorts to use the 4.0 Plan was strikingly better than the first semester GPAs for the first two freshman NACME classes which did not have the 4.0 Plan. A student's success depends on their renewed commitment each semester to an effective use of their time. In this paper the semester GPA of the students is correlated with their self-reported percent of the 4.0 Plan that they used that semester. A better understanding of these relationships should be helpful to students when they plan their semester with the goal of doing well academically.