Introduction

This article aims to analyze the performance of students from the Faculty of Social Sciences at PUC-Campinas who entered in the period from 2012 to 2015. The corpus of this research comprises 115 students who took 5,867 subjects in the period in question. The study presents socioeconomic information of the students and an analysis of their performance in the courses taken, considering the students who graduated and those who left or suspended the course. The text compares the students' performance considering the form of admission (paying students and scholarship holders). The information used was extracted in July 2020 from one of the bases of the academic systems of PUC-Campinas, known as the P.A. system (attendance protocol). The students' register of this base provides information about the form and period of entry, gender and age of the students. Regarding the courses taken, the registry has information about the subjects in which the students passed and failed, by semester, year and grade obtained.

During the years considered, the Social Sciences course at PUC-Campinas offered three forms of admission, namely: General Vestibular (GV), held at the end of the year and which selects paying students, the ProUni, a federal program that grants scholarships in private higher education institutions and, finally, the Social Vestibular (SV), which is the University's own scholarship program, reserved for candidates with a socioeconomic profile similar to that of ProUni candidates.

This paper is divided in four parts, besides this introduction. In the first, a brief discussion of research on student income is presented. The intention is to highlight the differences of this research, which is to analyze the income throughout the period in which the student was enrolled, considering both those who graduated and those who suspended. In the second part, information is presented regarding the subjects taken by the students who graduated and by the students who locked or suspended the course. The article ends with final comments.

Performance of scholarship and non-scholarship students

Research that has analyzed the performance of students, comparing those who enter through some system of inclusion (scholarship, quotas, etc.) with those who entered through the universal entrance exam, has been characterized in two general non-exclusive strands.

On one hand, there are studies that analyze the performance of students based on some of the databases made available by the Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (Inep). These are the cases of works that explore a year or cycles of the National Student Performance Exam (Enade) (^{Ristoff, 2016}). ^{Waltenberg & Carvalho (2012)}, for example, analyzed the results of the 2008 Enade graduates and compared them to the graduates who entered through affirmative action. ^{Wainer & Melguizo (2018)} confronted the scores obtained in the Enades from 2012 to 2014 by students who entered higher education via quotas, ProUni or Fies, with the scores of other students. ^{Moreira & Souza (2019)} analyzed the microdata from the Enade socio-educational questionnaire in the period between 2008 and 2013 considering three courses: Pedagogy, Medicine, and Law. ^{Barbosa & Santos (2011)} used information from that exam to compare the performance of ProUni and Fies scholarship recipients from eight selected undergraduate courses. ^{Mello Neto (2015)} compared the performance of scholarship holders and non-scholarship holders in the state of Pernambuco based on Enade (2006-2011) and Enem (2006-2011).

Such investigations, which are not exhausted in these examples listed, have the power to propose comparisons of great scope, whether territorial (Brazil, a state of the Federation, for example), whether by the type of institution or administrative category (public, private, Universities, Colleges, etc.) or by the course (higher or lower prestige) that, in a stratified and hierarchized system such as the Brazilian, significantly influence the processes of choice and performance of students. However, since it is a kind of photograph of a moment in the course, it does not allow an analysis of the students' performance throughout the semesters, as well as of those who suspended before the "photographed" moment.

There are other studies, among which this research is included, that seek to analyze the performance of students at various points in the course. These are researches with other scales, usually dedicated to students of an institution or of a specific course. ^{Velloso (2009)}, for example, presents the performance of students from three cohorts of students who entered the University of Brasilia in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and compares, for each of these cohorts, the performance of quota holders and non-quota holders considering the level of social prestige of the course and its area of knowledge of the vestibular (Humanities, Sciences and Health). The author used, for each cohort, the average grades obtained in subjects as follows: for 2004 entrants the grades of the first 5 semesters, for 2005 entrants the grades of the first three semesters and for 2006 entrants the grades of the first semester. As suggested by ^{Wainer & Melguizo (2018)}, research of this type usually uses a weighted average of students' grades (coefficient of performance, for example), which, despite the differences observed in relation to the aforementioned research that uses Inep bases, ends up returning to the question of privileging a certain moment of the student in the course.

The CR used in the analysis is not the students' CR at the end of the course, but at some point during the course. Thus, the analysis does not reflect the difference (or no difference) in students' achievement when they graduate, but one or two years after they start higher education (^{WAINER & MELGUIZO, 2018}, p.5)

Here we come to the point of distinction of the present research in relation to those mentioned in the previous paragraphs. In the following pages, in addition to the averages of the subjects studied, we will present information about the performance of the students of the Social Sciences course at PUC-Campinas throughout the period in which they attended the course, eight semesters for those who completed the course and five semesters for those who suspended. In fact, this is also another distinctive characteristic of this research, to present the performance of those who would not complete the course.

Characterization of Students

As already mentioned, 115 students entered the Social Sciences faculty in the period considered in this research, distributed as follows: 24 students in 2012, 20 in 2013, 42 in 2014, and 29 in 2015. We will see that the year 2014 stands out in relation to the others due to the quantity of entrants coming from ProUni.

The college's student body was mostly female, totaling 62.6% of the students. The majority presence of women seems to be a characteristic of the Social Sciences course, since a similar pattern is observed in other institutions. ^{Picanço (2018)}, for example, identified that of the 111 entrants to the Social Sciences course at UFRJ in 2013, 58.6% were women.

Until the year 2013, the institution did not separate the Social Sciences course in the modalities Licentiate and Bachelor, i.e., students were enrolled in both qualifications. However, this situation changed as of 2013, and the course is now mostly made up of students enrolled in the bachelor’s category, totaling 69.6% of the student body. Although the option for teaching elementary and high school is something important for Social Sciences graduates (^{PICANÇO, 2018}), corroborating the choice for the Undergraduate, it is necessary to consider that the Pedagogical Projects of the Undergraduate and the Bachelor in Social Sciences of PUCCampinas at the time shared most of the disciplines.The undergraduate course was composed of seven semesters and the bachelor degree of eight. In the first four semesters, the students from both modalities studied the same subjects. From the fifth semester on, they continued to share half of the subjects, but the undergraduate students started taking specific subjects (end of course work, for instance), as well as the graduate students (internships, etc.). The schedules of the specific courses of the bachelor's degree and of the licentiate's degree did not coincide, in order to give the student the possibility of graduating in both modalities, without the need to take more than eight semesters. Therefore, even though there is a prevalence in the choice of the licentiate degree, there is a considerable number of students who graduate in both modalities. Thus, we have chosen not to separate in this article the students of the Bachelor's and Bachelor's degrees, analyzing them together.

During the years considered (2012 to 2015), students in the Social Sciences course entered higher education with an average age of 22.5 years, i.e., slightly higher in relation to that expected for a serial system such as the Brazilian one. According to the National Education Plan - PNE of 2014, the age considered appropriate to attend higher education is from 18 to 24 years old. The youngest student entered at the age of 17, and the oldest at the age of 63, demonstrating the age heterogeneity of the students in the course.

We elaborated 5 age classes to analyze this variable considering the age of the students at the moment of entry. Two younger, one intermediate, and two older. The result can be seen in the graph below.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 1 Distribution of students according to age when they started the course (in%) 

Note that half of the students (53%) entered at an age considered to be expected or without major interruptions in their school career (up to 20 years old). The remainder entered after the age of 21, which indicates the presence of important variations in age when entering the course and the presence of significant contingents of younger students, as already mentioned, and older ones (about 20%, for example, entered at the age of 25 or older). This heterogeneous pattern in relation to age also seems to have been identified in Crizostomo's (2010) survey of 66 students enrolled in four Social Science courses in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Although working with other age groups, the author arrived at the following results:

The age range of the surveyed population is between 18 and 55 years old and was distributed into four bands for the purpose of analysis. At the time of the interview, 61% of the respondents were in the 18 to 28 age range, 15% were between 29 and 38 years old, 12% were between 39 and 50 years old, and 12% were over 50 years old. (^{CRIZOSTOMO, 2010}, pp. 15-16).

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 2 Distribution of students by age and entrance to the course 

When considering the type of enrollment by age, we see that students who entered through ProUni tend to be younger, suggesting, for many of these students, a great adaptation to the education system (^{Pires, Romão & Varollo, 2019}). Among the group of students who entered up to age 19 (n=62), almost half (48%) did so via ProUni, compared to 34% via General Vestibular, and 17%, Social Vestibular.

The situation is practically reversed considering the students who entered later (25 years or more). The ProUni, although still relevant, since it comprises 1/3 of these students, loses strength to the General Entrance Exam, which represents half of the students (n=24) in this age group. The performance of the Social Vestibular varied little in these two poles (younger and older), representing about 18% of the entrants in these two age groups. In the period considered (2012 to 2015), older people's entry has mostly been through the paid vestibular. For the younger students, admission was mostly through scholarship systems (ProUni or Social Vestibular).

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 3 Distribution of students according to course status 

Of the total of 115 students who comprise the universe of this research, approximately half (48%) had graduated by July 2020, and the other half (49%) had suspended, either because they locked or left the course (43%), or because they requested transfer to another institution (6%). 3% were still undergraduate at the time the information was extracted from the database. Although the numbers regarding the dropout of students from the Social Sciences course at PUC-Campinas may seem high, results of research conducted in other institutions suggest that this is a problem related to Brazilian higher education, the type of institution (public/private) in addition to specific issues of the Social Sciences course¹.

^{Bielschowsky (2019)}, for example, using various databases from Inep (Flux of Higher Education , Census of higher education and Enade) showed that based on the year 2017, the "federal universities graduated, on average, 45.4% of students entering in 2010; private universities 37.4%" (^{BIELSCHOWSKY, 2019}, p. 8). These numbers vary widely from course to course. In this paper, the Social Sciences course was not considered. By way of illustration, in the Pedagogy and History courses, private HEIs graduated 49% and 42% respectively of the students who entered in 2010.

The aforementioned research by ^{Picanço (2018)}, with Social Sciences students at UFRJ enrolled between 2000 and 2011, indicated a percentage of over 50% of students who had suspended the course. Of the 25 semesters considered by the author, only in 4 semesters was there a majority of students attending courses. There are moments (2nd semester of 2008) in which the percentage of dropped/absconded students reached close to 70% (^{Picanço, 2018}). The remarkable research by ^{Villas Bôas (2003)}, which analyzed 2,936 students enrolled between 1939 and 1988 in the Social Sciences course at UFRJ (which until 1968 was called Faculdade Nacional de Filosofia da Universidade do Brasil) seems to leave no doubt. Only 45.29% of these students graduated. Considering the gender bias already pointed out, the author concludes:

The percentage of women who finished the course is much higher than that of men: only 32.35% (479) of men obtained a bachelor's degree, while 54.71% (851) of women graduated. The social sciences seem to be a privileged locus of the ideals of professionalization of women in the intellectual world. (^{VILLAS BÔAS, 2003}, p. 47)

Mick, Diamico, & Luz (2012, p. 355) found that 60% of the total (n=473) of graduates of the Social Sciences course at UFSC between 2000 and 2009 were female. A very similar number was observed in Braga's (2011) survey of graduates from four Social Sciences courses in the state of São Paulo (USP, Unicamp, PUC-SP, and PUC-Campinas). Of the 230 respondents in this survey, 58.6% were women. Let us see how this proportion of graduates by gender appears at PUC-Campinas.

When we analyze the numbers in table 1, we have a similar situation regarding the proportion of women graduating considering the works of (^{Mick, Diamico, & Luz, 2012}) and (^{Braga, 2011}). Of the 55 graduates, 33 or 60% were women. However, when we consider the rate of graduates by gender, we see that at PUC-Campinas men tend to perform slightly better, diverging from the research of ^{Villas Bôas (2003)}. Of the total number of women enrolled in the course, 45.8% graduated, compared to 51.2% of men. As will be seen below, the way of entering the course is related to graduation and dropout rates. In the case of women, 66% were on scholarship, while for men this number falls to 58%. The difference, in the proportion of scholarship recipients and payers considering gender, may help to understand this better performance of men in relation to related research. Let's look at the distribution of students when considering the form of entry.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 4 Distribution of students according to entrance form and status in the course 

The information in the graph above shows that students entering through the General Admission Exam tend to have higher graduation rates by 2020, when compared to those entering through ProUni and Social Admission. In percentage terms, about 60% of the nonsocial vestibular entrant’s graduate, compared to about half of the VS and about 40% of the ProUni.

The form of enrollment also has an effect on the percentage of withdrawals and cancellations. Half of the ProUni students and a little more than half of the VS students have locked or left the course, compared to 30% of the VG. The fact that the latter are non-grant recipients may contribute to encourage them to finish the course in the shortest time possible, since staying longer than the expected time implies higher expenses than those expected. The ProUni and VS configurations offer students double the regular course completion time, that is, 14 or 16 semesters, depending on the modality (Degree or Bachelor). The scholarship students can also cancel their enrollment and then resume the course without any increase in tuition costs. The existence of a contingent (4%) of pro-union students who are still undergraduate in Social Sciences in 2020 corroborates this hypothesis.

The analysis of the figures in the table above indicates that entering higher education at a very young age (up to 18 years old) or much older (over 31 years old) implies greater chances of not graduating and, consequently, of dropping out or cancelling the course. The lowest graduation percentages and the highest dropout percentages occur in these age groups. There seem to be two age groups of entrants that are more likely to graduate: 19 to 20 years old (with 60% graduates) and especially 25 to 30 years old (with 80% graduates). Regarding the latter group, the high percentage of graduates (67%) who entered via the General Vestibular may help us understand the high graduation rate of this group, since we have seen that the form of entry interferes with the possibility of interrupting or finishing the course.

It was not possible to identify a pattern in the years considered in relation to the percentages of graduates and terminations, as the numbers varied widely. However, it can be said that the year 2013 was atypical. In this year, 3 out of 4 entrants graduated, a much higher number than in other years.

Similarly, the figures in the table above indicate that there is no pattern regarding the form of entry in the years considered. The years 2012 and 2015 show more or less similar proportions regarding the form of entry, but in 2013 and 2014 there are many variations. In 2013, General Vestibular students made up the majority (60%) of the entrants and there was only 1 ProUni student. This same year has the highest percentage of Social Vestibular entrants (35%). In the next year, 2014, there was a radical reversal. Pro-Uni students made up 85% of the class, compared to 12% from the General Entrance Exam and only 1 student from the Social Entrance Exam. It can be stated that these oscillations in the course followed the movement of the total number of Prouni scholarships granted to PUC-Campinas in the years considered. According to information from the dictionary of data regarding the scholarships granted and the profile of Prouni beneficiaries, made available by the Secretary of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education (Source: http://dadosabertos.mec.gov.br/prouni?start=0 accessed on September 15, 2020), in 2012 632 scholarships were granted to the University, in 2013 this number decreases to 381, in 2014 it rose to 1,164 to fall again in 2015 to 837 scholarships granted. Thus, such a low (in 2013) and such a high (in 2014) presence of Prouni students in the course relate to the fluctuations in total Prouni scholarship awards to the University.

Performance in Courses Taken

Between the years 2012 and 2015, the 115 students considered in this research took 5,867 courses, with 54.5% being offered in the first semesters of each of the years analyzed, and 45.5% in the second semesters.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 5 Distribution of total courses taken per semester 

It can be seen from the table above that the percentage of passes in the subjects is always much higher than the failures, with an average of 83% passes and 17% fails. The year 2014 is a little different from this proportion, but without challenging it completely. Let's see how the students' performance in the subjects was according to their situation in the course, considering only the graduated students and those who locked/suspended the course².

As one would imagine, the students who graduated had much higher pass rates in the courses compared to those who suspended or quit the course. The former failed only 7% of the courses taken, while the latter failed 43%. In many cases, the motivation for cancelling the course is related to failing courses. As for the arithmetic average of grades in subjects, the difference is not so marked considering the situation in the course. The students who passed, whether graduates or those who locked/suspended the course, passed with an average grade above the minimum required for approval: 8.3 and 7.1, respectively³. As for those who failed, the grades for both groups are much lower: 1.0. Regarding the failures, it is important to consider that in 87% of the cases, the failures occurred for grade and attendance reasons. Only in 17% (n=171) of the failures were due exclusively to grades. These numbers indicate that the failures in the Social Sciences course at PUC-Campinas occurred due to a combination of lack and frequency rather than due to difficulties in learning contents/skills throughout the semester (grades only).

The figures in the table above suggest that the variations of the arithmetic mean in the subjects taken according to the selected variables are very slight. Gender, age and form of entry seem to have little effect on the variation of the grade point average. In other words, when a graduate student passes a subject, he or she gets a grade that, on average, varies very little depending on whether he or she is male or female, entered at an age considered adequate or older, or entered through the scholarship system (ProUni or VS) or through the general vestibular (average of 8.3). In the same way, when the student failed, the average grade varied very little depending on the markings selected. The same can be said for the student who locked/suspended the course, with an average of 7.1 when approved and 1.0 when failed. The degree of dispersion of this population is also relatively homogeneous and low, as the standard deviation numbers attest, especially when we consider the average grades of the approved students in these subjects. In this case, the standard deviation was around 1.5 and 1.7 for the subjects of graduates and students who locked/disconnected from the course, respectively, without much variation around the marks considered. Greater dispersion was observed in the average grades of failed students, which showed greater variation in terms of gender, age and form of entry.

Let's see if the month of admission to the course causes any interference in relation to the chances of the student graduating or not. It is necessary to consider that admission by scholarship, whether via ProUni or Social Vestibular, is done through public announcements and selection processes that require documentation and proof. In the case of ProUni and the Social Vestibular, the student selection process made by the institution takes place at the end of January, with the possibility of extending it over several calls. This procedure causes some scholarship students to start the course already in progress, making it even more difficult to adapt to the course and the institution during the first semester, which, as we will see below, is very important. It is worth mentioning that the classes started in February in all the years considered.

We have separated the admission period into 3 moments: before the beginning of classes (before February), in February and after February. As there is no information about the day of enrollment, it is possible that in February there are students who started at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month. Thus, our comparison will be based on the extremes, that is, those who were already enrolled before the beginning of classes and those who entered late (after February).

As already suggested, most of the students who enrolled before the beginning of classes are non-scholarship students (71%). Scholarship recipients, on the other hand, make up the majority of those who entered the course already in progress (96%). Late admittance, although very difficult for the students - since it implies in extra efforts to adapt to the university environment and to the course - does not seem to interfere with the percentages of graduates and students locked/disconnected from the Social Sciences course at PUC-Campinas in the years considered. For those who started before February, 56% graduated, compared to 59% for those who started after February. For those who locked/disconnected, the percentage is almost identical: 37%.

When we combine the variables enrollment and status in the course, we can observe something similar.

When we check the numbers referring to those who entered after February, we notice that among the scholarship recipients (ProUni and Social Vestibular), who make up the majority of this group, late entry did not imply in lower completion rates or in a higher percentage of withdrawal/dropout. However, these numbers should be read with caution due to the specificity of the Social Sciences course at PUC-Campinas, and the small number of cases (n=26) of late entrants.

Performance in Courses Taken

Let's move on to the performance of graduates and those who have locked or suspended the course.

To analyze the performance of these students, it is necessary to explain some procedures used to enable the comparison between these students. First of all, we chose to analyze the students' performance according to their year of admission and, based on this, their performance throughout the 8 semesters that make up the course. We understand that the classes of each year are submitted to more or less similar experiences that differ from the others. Obviously, there are cases of students who do not follow their classes by choice or because they are forced to take classes with students from other years. However, students who follow their class have had classes with the same teachers, with the same subjects, and build, in a specific way, feelings of affection or repulsion towards the teachers and/or subjects, besides establishing behaviors in class, in terms of participation and engagement in the proposed activities, in different ways.

Although not all of them finish the course in 8 semesters, the analysis indicated that the number of subjects studied drops drastically after the 8th semester⁴. Another bias to be considered refers to the heterogeneous composition of the years of entry in relation to the course graduates and dropouts, as can be seen in the next two tables.

In the graduating classes of 2012 and 2013, there is only 1 ProUni student. The same occurs in the graduating class of 2015 in relation to the Social Vestibular. To avoid tracking the grades in the subjects of only 1 student, we chose to aggregate in this part of the analysis the ProUni students with those of the Social Vestibular and call them Scholarship Students.

Graduates

Let us begin by analyzing the subjects taken by the students who graduated from the Social Sciences course. The next two graphs present information on subject achievement in the 8 regular semesters (% of subjects in which students passed), according to the year of the entering class.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 6 Distribution of the subjects in which the students passed (in %) per semester, according to the year of entry - General Admission Exam 

In fact, the information in the graphs indicates how heterogeneous the classes are in terms of the path they follow throughout the course. Among the paying students, for example, there are classes, such as the class of 2015, that have maintained a high and stable performance throughout the eight semesters, with pass rates in the courses taken close to 100%. The same can be seen with the scholarship class of 2013. On the other hand, there are classes (2012 and 2014 fellows and non-fellows, respectively) that experienced large fluctuations over the semesters. For example, among the 2012 fellows, the 4th semester seems to have been difficult, as the pass rate in subjects was below the 80% plateau (73.7%). Similarly, the 2014 nonscholarship recipients seem to have encountered greater difficulties in the 3rd, 5th, and 8th semesters.

From a broader perspective, the data show that both groups (scholarship recipients and non-scholarship recipients) begin the course and increase the percentage of passing grades in the second semester. From the 3rd semester on, there is a drop in the subject pass rates, an increase between the 5th and 7th semesters, and a drop again in the last semester. The graph below summarizes this movement.

Analysis of the information in Graph 7 indicates that there are no significant differences between the performance of non-scholarship recipients and scholarship recipients in terms of their performance in the courses taken. As can be seen, the movement of scholarship recipients and non-grant recipients throughout the course is very similar. Let's now look at the students' performance based on the grades of the courses taken over the semesters.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 7 Distribution of the subjects in which the students passed (in %) per semester, according to the year of entry - Scholarship Students 

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 8 Distribution of the average number of students who pass subjects (in %) per semester, according to the means of entry 

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 9 Distribution of average grades in subjects taken per semester, according to year of admission - Vestibular 

Regarding grades, we again see heterogeneity in class performance and variation in average grades throughout the course. It is important to consider that the calculation of the students' average grades included grades in the subjects in which they passed and failed. Once again, the classes of 2015 non-scholarship recipients and 2013 scholarship recipients stood out, indicating a positive relationship between pass rates and grades for these classes. And conversely, the classes of 2012 and 2014 scholarship recipients and 2014 non-scholarship recipients showed variations across the semesters considered. To illustrate the differences between class grades across semesters, let us look at the 8th semester averages of the 2012 and 2013 scholarship recipients. In this semester, the grades of these two classes varied from 6.4 (class of 2012) to 9.7 (class of 2013), a difference of 3.3 points. Among non-scholarship recipients, the largest difference occurred in the 3rd semester grades for the classes of 2013 (8.3) and 2014 (6.3): 2 points in favor of the class of 2013.

Graph 10 shows the average grades of the classes by form of entry and indicates a similar trend to that of the average percentages of passing grades in the courses taken. The performance in grades of scholarship recipients and non-scholarship recipients showed very similar movement over the semesters, so that it is not possible to state that there are significant differences. Even when the biggest difference was observed (8th semester), it was only 0.6 points in favor of the non-fellows.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 10 Distribution of average marks in courses taken per semester, by year of entry - Scholarship holders 

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Graph 11 Distribution of average grades in subjects taken per semester, according to the means of entry 

One can see more clearly the dynamics of the graduates' grades and some important variations. Both scholarship holders and non-scholarship holders begin the course with grades around 7.4, improve a little, remain at a plateau of 7.6 in the second and third semesters, fall back to the grade levels of the first semester in the fourth semester, and then, starting in the fifth semester, begin to grow until the seventh semester, when they stabilize or fall a little, but at high levels.

The most sensitive moments (for grantees and non-grantees) seem to be at the beginning (1st semester) and in the middle (4th semester) of the course. One hypothesis to explain these differences may be related to certain factors, among them, the fact that at the beginning of the course, students (sometimes the first in their families to attend higher education) face a variety of difficulties in adapting to the university environment (housing, transportation, food, teaching materials, relationships with classmates, with their families, with institutional habitus, etc.). These initial difficulties of adaptation interfere in the students' performance as attested by studies that indicate the importance of the first year of graduation as a crucial moment for permanence and success in higher education (Teixeira et al., 2008) (^{Guerreiro-Casanova & Polydoro, 2010}) (^{Soria, 2015})

We have seen that in the Pedagogical Project of the Social Sciences course at PUCCampinas, in force these years, Bachelor's and Undergraduate students share the same subjects in the first four semesters, which are eminently theoretical. From the fifth semester on, specific courses begin to be taught for students in each of these modalities. Although they still continue to share theoretical subjects, it is likely that after the 5th semester, by taking subjects more related to professional practice (internships in schools for the BSc and Final Course Assignment for the BSc, for example) students will feel more motivated and this will have an impact on their performance.

The concentration of more theoretical subjects in the first four semesters of the course, leaving the optional or practical subjects from the 5th semester on, seems to be a characteristic shared with other institutions, as indicated by the curricula of the four Social Sciences courses in Rio de Janeiro analyzed by (^{Crizostomo, 2010})

In any case, this research suggests that interventions to favor the permanence of students, whether on scholarship or not, should consider the differences in performance and/or motivation that they present throughout the course, such as those evidenced in the approval and performance curves.

Students who locked or suspended the course.

Let us now move on to the students who did not graduate (locked/transferred) in order to verify their performance throughout the course. Considering the composition of nonscholarship recipients and scholarship recipients by year of entry, as seen in Table 11, and the fact that there are years in which there is only one scholar (2013) or one non-scholar (2014), we chose to present the results of the disciplines in which students were approved, considering the group of students who locked/disconnected from the course by semester, without discriminating between classes.

Source: PA System PUC-Campinas

Chart 12 Distribution of the subjects in which students who locked or suspended the course passed, by entrance form (2012-2015) - in percentage 

The graph above shows the percentage of passes in the subjects according to the form of admission. As these are students who have not completed the course, it is reasonable to assume that the percentage of subjects passed will decrease over the semesters. However, the first three semesters seem to be decisive in relation to the decrease of approvals in subjects, especially from the 2nd to the 3rd semester, as the numbers above show. After the drop in the first three semesters, there is a plateau between the 3rd and 4th semester, and then a drop in the 5th semester (the 6th, 7th and 8th semesters were excluded, as the number of subjects taken by students who left the course was very small).

Final Considerations

The information presented in this article corroborates conclusions from previous studies related to the performance of scholarship recipients and non-grant recipients. Therefore, this work adds to those that demonstrate that the presence of scholarship recipients in the undergraduate course does not imply lower grades or pass rates in the courses taken, or, in general, a drop in performance in the course. We have seen that the performance of scholarship students and non-scholarship students was very similar, both in relation to those who graduated and those who suspended.

The analysis of the performance of the students of the Social Sciences course at PUCCampinas shows that the trajectory of these students along the course is not linear, varying significantly along the semesters, both for the graduates and the dropouts. For those who finish the course, the first four semesters seem to be the most difficult (in terms of grade and approval). For those who have suspended, the importance of considering the first three semesters. These results allow us to state that student policies related to the permanence in the course, a problem that has been widely documented in relation to Prouni students, for example, should be designed and implemented considering the oscillations in student performance throughout the semesters. In the case in question, whether due to curriculum factors, adaptation to the university environment, or expectations regarding the profession, the first four semesters seem to be the most favorable for actions of this type.