SAN MARCOS, Texas – Five Texas State Athletics teams enjoyed landmark classroom performances and all 14 teams surpassed the mandatory NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR) multi-year benchmark.
According to the latest NCAA Division I APR scores released Wednesday afternoon, Texas State's men's basketball (967), men's golf (993), women's soccer (995) posted their highest scores ever, while women's golf (1,000) and women's tennis (1,000) equaled their best scores.
The women's golf and tennis teams received NCAA Public Recognition Awards last week for ranking among the top 10 percent among the teams in each sport. This marks the 11 straight year that the women's tennis team has posted a perfect APR score and the seventh consecutive year for the women's golf team.
Six Bobcat teams exceeded or equaled the median national multi-year score in each of their sports. The men's golf (993), women's cross country (990), women's golf (1,000), softball (990), women's soccer (995) and women's tennis (1,000) exceeded the national standard, while the men's basketball team (967) equaled the national average.
To compete in the 2019-20 postseason, teams must achieve a 930 four-year APR. NCAA members chose the 930 standard because that score predicts, on average, a 50% graduation rate for teams at that APR level. Additionally, teams must earn at least a 930 four-year APR to avoid penalties.
Since the Division I membership created the Academic Performance Program 15 years ago, more than 17,500 former student-athletes have earned APR points for their prior teams by returning to college and earning a degree after their eligibility expired. Of those, more than half (9,174) competed in football, baseball or basketball. These students typically do not count in graduation rates because they earn degrees outside the six-year window allowed by both the federal graduation rate and the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate.
The Committee on Academics is conducting a holistic review of the Academic Performance Rate metric, including which student-athletes are included in the rate, how transfers are accounted for in the rate (before and after graduation), how the rate is calculated and how penalties are assigned.
The review, approved last year by the Division I Board of Directors, is intended to evaluate how well the APR is aligning with its purpose: monitoring and demonstrating academic performance and progress toward graduation. The review is expected to continue through 2019.
The APR, created to provide more of a real-time measurement of academic success than graduation rates offer, is a team-based metric where scholarship student-athletes earn one point each term for remaining eligible and one point for staying in school or graduating. Schools that don't offer scholarships track their recruited student-athletes.
Every Division I sports team submits data to have its Academic Progress Rate calculated each academic year. The NCAA reports both single-year rates and four-year rates, on which penalties for poor academic performance are based.
