**1. Introduction**

College students, permanently self-assess their intra-period academic progress, at those various moments, make intuitive predictions [1] regarding their academic performance at the end of the term. Using simple general rules [2], they outline their decisions regarding their academic future. In this research, we simulate the behavior of academic performance (AP) at the end of the period, for this, we take the information of the different moments of measurement that we have in the semester, mainly of the first moment. The quantitative and qualitative information, of the very short term, offers the possibility for teachers and the university to take strategic actions to change the course of students with unfavorable prognosis or to consolidate the course of those who are projected to pass the subjects.

The research was conducted with secondary information from the students enrolled in the distance learning system at the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) in Ecuador. Having information from students who live and experience different personal and geographic realities throughout Ecuador ensures the reliability and robustness of the forecast.

The modeling of the behavior was carried out in two moments; in the first, a theoretical model was found in which the movements of academic performance were hypothetically discovered and described; and, in the second moment, empirical evidence was generated with econometric logit probability models. The modeling of the behavior was carried out in two moments; in the first, a theoretical model was found in which the movements of academic performance were hypothetically discovered and described; and, in the second moment, empirical evidence was generated with econometric logit probability models. In the two forms of evidence, it was found that, the first weeks of the academic period are the determinants and have sufficient information to explain the future movements of academic performance; if the student is diligent in the first weeks of study and have an academic performance equal to or higher than 75% of the grade has high probability of passing the subject.
