The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not there exists arnsignificant difference in academic performance between preparatory originrnand freshman origin high and low achieving students who came together asrnregular second year students of the Addis Ababa University (AAU) in the yearrn2003/ 2004, as measured by a) academic achievement b) pass rate c) dismissalrnrate d) withdrawal rate and e) wastage rate with and without controllingrnsecondary school performance.rnEach of these groups took different paths to the second year of the AAU: 423rnpreparatory origin students entered AAU second year after completing generalrnsecondary education and also completing the first year equivalent preparatoryrnschool courses, whereas 303 freshman origin students entered AAU secondrnyear after completing high school and a freshman year at the university. Thernstudy also aims to see whether or not there exists a statistically significantrndifference, in academic achievement, between (a) faculties (b) female and malernstudents and c) different age groups.rnThe study showed that, regardless of the path they tool< to enter the AAUrnsecond year, either through preparatory schools or through freshmanrnyear at AAU, students in the high achieving group performed equally wellrnat the AAU in terms of:rn+ First semester CPArn+ Second semester CPArn+ Cumulative CPArn+ Pass ratern+ Dismissal ratern+ Withdrawal rate, andrn+ Wastage raternHowever, some differences Â·were observed in academic performance betweenrnlow achieving group of the preparatory origin and the freshman originrnstudents. "Low achiever" freshman origin students out-performed H/owrnachiever" preparatory origin students at AAU second year on thernfollowing performance measures at p