The quality of higher education products, to a large extent, depends on the quality of students admitted, hence the need for reliable selection parameters. JAMB scores was the only parameter used in the selection process before the introduction of the Post- University Matriculation Exam (PME). This paper, in an effort to access the reliability of UME scores, studied the relationship and the transition probabilities of UME to PME scores with a view to finding out the reliabilities of the scores from these two examinations. Results obtained showed a very low correlation coefficient between the two scores, for all the candidates. However, when the “cut-off aggregate score” was used to classify the candidates, the correlation coefficient for the successful candidates increased remarkably, an indication that the UME scores alone is not a reliable parameter for the selection process. Many students with high UME scores had very low PME scores. This observation/finding is supported by the transition probability matrices. A detailed analysis of the transition matrices confirmed that for admission of high quality students into Universities, the UME and the PME scores should complement each other in the admission process.

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