2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

[Roy]

APRs for all Div I schools can be found at NCAA.org. The Centenary basketball team of the Summit League was sanctioned.

[zooropa]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Find SDSU's report here:

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=49714

[JackJD]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Has anyone taken the time to translate the information so that a layman can get an answer to the question: How're we doin'?

[rabidrabbit]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

ORU - sanctioned to only 12 MBB renewals.
WIU - sanctioned to only 12 MBB renewals.
SUU - sanctioned to only 12 MBB renewals.
IUPUI - sanctioned to only 10 MBB renewals.

Remaining 5 Summit schools no limitations.

[filbert]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Public Recognition Awards, By School (Summit League)

IPFW - Men's Cross Country; Women's Volleyball
SDSU - Men's Golf
UMKC - Women's Tennis; Women's Volleyball

(This is the list you want to be on.)

[zooropa]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Has anyone taken the time to translate the information so that a layman can get an answer to the question: How're we doin'?

Uh. Midpack it appears.

Each Division I sports team receives an APR. An APR of 925 roughly projects to a 60 percent graduation success rate. To calculate the APR, every student-athlete is tracked by eligibility and retention, the two most reliable factors in predicting graduation. Those who do well in the classroom and stay in school earn two points. Those who pass but do not return to school earn one point. If a student-athlete fails academically and leaves school, their team loses two points. If a student-athlete returns to school later and graduates, the school earns one bonus point. The team’s APR is calculated by dividing the total points earned in a year by the total points possible.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=3219

The score now consists of four year rolling averages:
http://www.umterps.com/genrel/050608aae.html

Basically, it's a circus method of calculating academic performance, as the team is dinged if players QUIT the team (but CONTINUE their education???) or TRANSFER to another university.

Seemingly, academic PROGRESS would be continuing if players remained enrolled in the same university or if they transfer to another university, but the NCAA has decreed that that type of PROGRESS is not the kind of progress they're interested in.

For instance, stellar scholar, athlete, and friend to SDSU pre-schoolers Jenn Warkenthien, will, I believe, negatively impact SDSU's APR because she's finishing her degree at Dakota State in the fall.

[joeboo22]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

I think that the numbers are arbitational..... first of all they are 4 year running so the mens basketball team is 929 which is above the 925 where they start to think of giving penalties but they have had many transfers... ... The reason they are arbitrational though is because the NCAA will give waivers and probation and so and so.... so the way I look at it is we didn't loose any scholarships in any of the major sports so thats a good thing.....

[JimmyJack]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

For instance, stellar scholar, athlete, and friend to SDSU pre-schoolers Jenn Warkenthien, will, I believe, negatively impact SDSU's APR because she's finishing her degree at Dakota State in the fall.

I'm pretty sure she still gets an SDSU degree, but is adding an elementary education teaching certification to it through her year at DSU. If she doesn't count as a positive us, then the NCAA academic tracking system is even dumber than it appears.

[1stRowFANatic]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

I know that there used to be a cooperative agreement between SDSU & DSU, as well as one between SDSU & BHSU, regarding El Ed degrees. My wife did this and her degree is from SDSU. However, I do not know if the cooperative agreement affects the academic report. If not, my understanding is that it will ding us as she has left the university and is enrolled at another institution. Even if it doesn't, I have no problem stating that this is a really riduculous method of tracking academics at institutions.

[rabidrabbit]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

http://www.championshipsubdivisionne...log=5#more4922

A good discussion by AGS's "Lehigh Football Nation" and very knowledgeable poster about the "unfair" aspects of this APR implementation.

The AGS discussion thread.

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/foru...ad.php?t=59251

[bigticket1]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

There definitely needs to be adjustments made. Minnesota lost football scholarships in part because they booted the 4 players involved in a sexual assault off the team and they left school.

[JimmyJack]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Clearly, the old system of reporting graduation rates was unacceptable. This formula, while imperfect, is obviously designed to answer a more general question: Are student athletes in your program progressing academically? I think it's intended to raise red flags indicating something might be wrong, not provide a comparative index of how good your program is academically.

If there are problems, the number drops. Lots of problems and it drops below the threshold. But you can't say one program is academically "better" than another based on a 949 versus a 959. And I don't think that's what it's intended to do, although it's certainly tempting to do so.

[zooropa]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Clearly, the old system of reporting graduation rates was unacceptable. This formula, while imperfect, is obviously designed to answer a more general question: Are student athletes in your program progressing academically? I think it's intended to raise red flags indicating something might be wrong, not provide a comparative index of how good your program is academically.

If there are problems, the number drops. Lots of problems and it drops below the threshold. But you can't say one program is academically "better" than another based on a 949 versus a 959. And I don't think that's what it's intended to do, although it's certainly tempting to do so.

Another beef I've got about this number (aside from the asinine 'if you stay in school your school still gets dinged' aspect) is that the first 800 or so points are absolutely worthless.

I mean, please, let's try and come up with a scoring system that doesn't create a 20 percentile difference out of a 10 point spread!

[Hammersmith]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

Warkenthien won't hurt your APR because you stop counting for or against the rate once your playing eligibility runs out.

I really don't understand all the angst toward the APR. Sure it's not perfect, but it's still fairly new and it's only one part of layered system to keep student-athletes as students first and foremost. In the coming years, I expect there to be continued tweaks to the exceptions list. I know the system has been in place for four or five years already, but this is only the second year where real penalties have been in place and only the third year to have complete data.

If you don't know what APR is exactly, here's a primer:

For every semester where a student-athlete has playing eligibility remaining, they are worth two possible points. If they are academically eligible and remain in that school, the school gets both points. If they are not academically eligible but still remain in school, the school gets one point. The school also gets one point if the student remains academically eligible but drops-out or transfers. If the student loses academic eligibility and does not return to school the following semester, the school gets zero points. The APR takes all the points earned over the previous four years, divides them by the total possible points, and multiplies that number by 1000. So, an APR score of 925 means that a school has earned 92.5% of the total possible points over that four-year span.

The APR includes some other modifiers to encourage schools to keep student-athletes in school. If a student is academically ineligible and drops-out, the school receives zero points for that student-semester, but can get one of those points back if the student re-enrolls at a later date.* Also, a school does not take a hit if the student leaves school to join the pros as long as they were academically eligible to return had they chosen to.

So, what hurts a school? Transferring, dropping out for reasons not related to professional sports, and failing to meet academic eligibility requirements.


Overall, think of APR as the second of three lines of defense. The first line consists of the academic eligibility requirements that check for course completion, GPA levels, and progress toward a degree. The APR functions as a second line by compiling that data by sport and combining it with info on drop-outs and transfers. The Graduation Success Rate functions as the third and final line by checking to see if the students who stay in the program are actually finishing their degrees after their playing eligibility is finished. By themselves, each line has holes and blind-spots, but together they overlap and provide pretty good coverage.

If a school has APR problems, it suggests that either the school is recruiting students ill-prepared for college life, not giving them the academic support they need while in the program, or creating an environment that encourages transfers. If a school has an acceptable APR but not a good GSR, then it means that the school is either not supporting the student-athletes once their playing careers are over, or the school is acting like a triple-A club in baseball and only babysitting kids until their pro offers come.


And I got no problem with the numbering system. As long as you realize that it's a percentage with the decimal moved, it makes perfect sense.




*It just occured to me that this provision means you can actually get an APR above 1000 in a rare case.

[Hammersmith]

Re: 2009 Div I Academic Progress Reports

A second thought about the APR system is that it seems like it's a wonderful tool to see which schools actually have the resources to be in Division I. Remember, APR doesn't apply to DII or DIII. The schools that are having the most problems with APR are also the schools that are borderline DI. And quite frankly, DI could use some pruning. We're closing in on 350 schools in DI, and we're probably going to get another burst after the moratorium ends. I know that some larger schools would say that NDSU and SDSU are part of the problem(since we're new to DI), but both our schools are in much better shape than the bottom third of DI and our APR's show we are selecting good students and supporting them while they're here(the exceptional sport notwithstanding; aka SDSU MBB and, soon, NDSU FB).

To me, the Chuck Burton article(from rabid's post) is nothing more than whining from schools that shouldn't be DI in the first place. Maybe the fact that it's late is making me a little snarkier than usual, but I don't have much sympathy for the programs struggling with low APR's. When running your program, you have choices. You may not always like those choices, but you have them. If you're going to take a chance on marginal students, you better have the resources to support them academically and financially. If you don't have the resources, either choose recruits that have the academic and financial capabilities to succeed in college with little institutional help, drop down to DII, DIII or NAIA, or get very creative with your support system. By creative, I don't mean cheat, but find ways to give the students the help they need in methods that require little money or manpower. It might be tough, but it's doable if you have good people who can think outside the box.