App that can predict your GPA

Researchers have developed an app that automatically predicts college students' grade point average (GPA) based on their smartphone data.

Grade point average (GPA) is an important factor for applying to US universities.

The SmartGPA app, developed by the researchers from the Dartmouth College in New Hampshire also offers new ways to improve students' performance, providing real-time feedback on their studying, partying, sleeping and exercising to help them stay on track academically.

"The SmartGPA results show the social behaviours automatically inferred from the smartphone sensing data which significantly correlate with their academic term and cumulative GPA," said computer science professor Andrew Campbell, senior author of the SmartGPA study.

The researchers installed the app on the smartphones of 30 Dartmouth undergraduate students and monitored them across a 10-week academic term.

It also tracks behavioural changes in the students such as class attendance, sleep, physical activity and sociability (face to face conversation and indoor and outdoor mobility).

The results show the app, along with periodic self-reports from students, can predict their GPA within 17 hundredths of a point against their cumulative GPA from their transcripts.

The team presented preliminary findings in a keynote address at the International Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM-15) in Oxford, Britain on Wednesday.