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The Academic Progress Rate, sometimes also known as Academic Performance Rating

The NCAA defines The Academic Progress Rate as:

The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a term-by-term measure of eligibility and retention for Division I student-athletes that was developed as an early indicator of eventual graduation rates.

Background

The mandatory publication of graduation rates came into effect in 1990 as a consequence of the "Student Right-to-Know Act," which attempted to create an environment in which universities would become more devoted to academics and hold athletes more accountable for academic success. However, the graduation rates established by the NCAA showed poor results, for example they reported that among students who entered college between 1993 and 1996 only 51 percent of football players graduated within 6 years and 41 percent of basketball players. Feeling pressure to improve these poor rates the NCAA instituted new reforms in 2004, including the academic progress rate, a new method for gauging the academic progress of student athletes. It was put into place in order to aid in the NCAA's goal for student-athletes to graduate with meaningful degrees preparing them for life. The principle data collector was Thomas Paskus, the Principal Research Scientist for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Functions

The APR measures how scholarship student-athletes are performing term by term throughout the school year. It is a composite team measurement based upon how individual team members do academically. Teams that don’t make the 925 APR threshold are subject to sanctions. The NCAA works closely with the schools that do not meet the threshold in order to improve them. When a school has APR challenges, it may be encouraged or even required to present an academic improvement plan to the NCAA. In reviewing these plans, the national office staff encourages schools to work with other campus units to achieve a positive outcome. The staff also works with APR-challenged schools to create reasonable timelines for improvement. While eligibility requirements make the individual student-athlete accountable, the Academic Progress Rate creates a level of responsibility for the university.

Measurement

Teams that fail to achieve an APR score of 925 - equivalent to a 50% graduation rate - may be penalized. A perfect score is 1000. The scores are calculated as follows:

Each student-athlete receiving athletically related financial aid earns one retention point for staying in school and one eligibility point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are divided by the points possible and then multiplied by one thousand to equal the team’s Academic Progress Rate score.

Example: A Division I Football Bowl Subdivision team awards the full complement of 85 grants-in-aid. If 80 student-athletes remain in school and academically eligible, three remain in school but are academically ineligible and two drop out academically ineligible, the team earns 163 of 170 possible points for that term. Divide 163 by 170 and multiply by 1,000 to determine that the team’s Academic Progress Rate for that term is 959.

The NCAA calculates the rate as a rolling, four-year figure that takes into account all the points student-athletes could earn for remaining in school and academically eligible during that period. Teams that do not earn an Academic Progress Rate above specific benchmarks face penalties ranging from scholarship reductions to more severe sanctions like restrictions on scholarships and practice time.

Sanctions

Teams that score below 925 and have a student-athlete who both failed academically and left school can lose scholarships (up to 10 percent of their scholarships each year) under the immediate penalty structure.

Teams with Academic Progress Rates below 900 face additional sanctions, increasing in severity for each consecutive year the team fails to meet the standard.

Year 1: a public warning letter for poor performance

Year 2: restrictions on scholarships and practice time

Year 3: loss of postseason competition for the team (such as a bowl game or the men's basketball tournament)

Year 4: restricted membership status for an institution. The school's entire athletics program is penalized and will not be considered a part of Division I.

The first penalties under the APR system were scheduled to be announced in December 2005. Starting with the 2008–09 academic year, bans from postseason competition were added to the penalty structure. The most severe penalty available is a one-year suspension of NCAA membership, which has not yet been assessed as of 2010–11.

Prior to 2010–11, only four teams had received postseason bans. The results of the NCAA's APR report for that year, which covered 2006–07 through 2009–10, saw eight teams receive that penalty—five in men's basketball and three in football. Most notably, Southern University became the first school ever to receive APR-related postseason bans in two sports. The highest-profile penalty in that year's cycle was handed down to defending NCAA men's basketball champion Connecticut. The Huskies lost two scholarships for the 2011–12 season due to APR violations.

Reform

NCAA college presidents met in Indianapolis in August 2011 to discuss a reform on the APR because of the poor academic performance by student athletes. The NCAA Board of Directors, on Thursday August 11th, voted to ban Division I athletic teams from postseason play if their four-year academic progress rate failed to meet 930.

However the new policy calls for a more immediate and straightforward solution, if the team APR falls below 930 then that team is banned from postseason play, even if it's one of the top teams in the country. And it doesn't appear as if there will be any appeal process.

Currently, the APR benchmark is set at 925, which predicts approximately a 50 percent graduation rate. Only if a team falls below 900 three years in a row could they potentially face postseason bans, as well as scholarship and practice restrictions.

Reform Effects

On Football

There are many questions regarding how the NCAA will enforce the new policy for football. The Bowl Championship Series is its own entity and decides the college football postseason, thus making them the governing body for college football.President Gary Ransdell said there's uncertainty on how the new standard relates to the BCS. "The BCS is an independently run enterprise, yet it involves NCAA member institutions," he said. "So does this 930 rule also determine eligibility for BCS games? I think that's yet to be ironed out."

On Men's Basketball

The APR's flaws are highlighted in men's basketball. "Syracuse's Jim Boeheim suffered the two-scholarship hit last summer, and in doing so publicly upbraided the APR for taking into account the departures of Eric Devendorf, Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris for the NBA draft, all three of whom left campus to prepare for the NBA event without fulfilling their spring semester requirements." Many college basketball players leave before they graduate, and the ones that leave in bad academic standing, cause the APR to go down. This issue is seen throughout college basketball.

Adjustments

The NCAA does adjust APR, on a student-by-student basis, in two circumstances. One exception that can be made, is for student-athletes who leave prior to graduation, while in good academic standing, to pursue a professional career. Another is for student-athletes who transfer to another school while meeting minimum academic requirements and student-athletes who return to graduate at a later date. In the 2010–11 cycle, the NCAA granted nearly 700 APR adjustments in the latter category, out of a total of over 6,400 Division I teams. Nearly half of the adjustments were for baseball players.

APR compared to FGR

Another indicator of the academic performance of student athletes is the Federal Graduation Rate which is published by the university. In computing the FGR the only data that is relevant is whether the student athlete graduates within six years of enrolling in the institution. This differs from the APR because it makes no distinction of the purpose a student has for leaving and whether or not they leave a university in good academic standing. If a student leaves their enrolled university to pursue a professional athletic career this counts the same under the FGR as someone who leaves because they failed out of school; on the other hand, by the APR standards a student that leaves while still in good academic standing receives one point out of two which distinguishes them from someone that left because of academic failure. With that in mind, FGR rates usually reflect a value lower than the APR at elite athletic institutions that consistently send athletes to the professional leagues prior to graduation. This doesn't make one rate better than another, rather both rates can be analyzed together to paint the best picture of what is happening at the university. The NCAA developed its GSR in response to criticism that the FGR understates the academic success of athletes because the FGR method does not take into account two important factors in college athletics:

1. When student-atletes transfer from an institution before graduating and is in good academic standing (perhaps to transfer from an institution for more playing time, different major, or to do pro); and

2. Those student-athletes who transfer to an institution (e.g. from a community college or another 4-year college) and earn a degree.

The FGR treats transfers as nongraduates for the original institution the student-athlete attended, even if that student-athlete later graduates from another institution. Also, the FGR does not include that student- athlete in the graduation rates at the new institution where he/she does graduate. Therefore, once a student-athlete transfers to another school he/she is no longer recognized in the calculated graduation rate. The GSR takes into accounts both factors and gives credit to institutions for successful transfers, whether they are leaving or entering an institution.

Potential Misinterpretations

While the numbers represented in the APR have a certain significance, there can be misrepresentations for people unfamiliar with what the APR is showing. For example, the APR only applies to students that receive athletic financial aid, which is by no means all varsity athletes at a university. NCAA's 1,265 member colleges and universities report that they have more than 355,000 student-athletes playing each year. Approximately 36% of these NCAA student-athletes receive a share of the $1 billion earmarked for athletic scholarships. Another common misuse of the data occurs when APR results are compared between universities. This is usually not a valid comparison unless it is viewed alongside the graduation rates for non athletes at the institution. For example, one institution may have an APR representing that only 50% of athletes are on track to graduate which seems like athletes are under performing at the university. However, if the graduation rate for non-athletes is also 50% then the low graduation rate for the athletes is not an athletic problem, but a university wide problem. Furthermore, it is not always relevant to compare APR scores across universities because the academic rigors between universities differ. For example, at some high performing academic universities freshman struggle with eligibility because the workload is hard to deal with initially, but in the end, those students prove to have academic success.