Understanding the NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR)

The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a metric developed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to track the academic performance of student-athletes in Division I colleges and universities. It is designed to ensure that student-athletes are making progress toward earning their degrees while participating in college sports.

What is the Academic Progress Rate (APR)?

The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a team-based metric that accounts for the academic eligibility and retention of each scholarship student-athlete. It was introduced by the NCAA to promote accountability and prioritize academic achievement across collegiate athletics. The APR measures how scholarship student-athletes perform academically each term during the school year. It is a composite team measurement based upon individual academic performance.

Dave Schnase, NCAA vice president of academic and membership affairs, said, "As the college athletics landscape continues to evolve, what remains unchanged is the academic success of student-athletes. We applaud the incredible academic achievements of hundreds of thousands of student-athletes and the support provided by their schools. We are committed to supporting the continued advancement of their academic success and athletic pursuits."

How the APR is Calculated

Each academic year, every Division I sports team's APR is calculated using a simple and consistent formula. The APR cohort is made up of student-athletes enrolled full time in a regular academic term who receive athletics aid and/or payments or benefits provided in compliance with the benefits cap and cap-related rules, policies and procedures. Each scholarship student-athlete can earn up to two points per term:

Retention Point: One point is awarded if the student-athlete stays enrolled in school.
Eligibility Point: One point is awarded if the student-athlete remains academically eligible for the next term. For schools that do not offer athletics scholarships, recruited student-athletes are tracked.

To calculate a team's APR, the total number of points earned by all team members is divided by the total number of points possible, and the result is multiplied by 1,000.

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Example:

Consider a Division I baseball team with 27 scholarship players. Each player can earn 2 points per academic year (1 for eligibility and 1 for retention each semester). Therefore, the team has a potential of 108 APR points in an academic year (27 players x 2 points x 2 semesters = 108).

If 7 players leave the program or are ineligible to return in the fall, the team loses 7 points (108 potential points - 7 lost = 101). The team's APR would be 935 (101 divided by 108 is 93.5, multiplied by 1000).

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. In addition to a team’s current-year APR, a rolling four-year average is also used to assess long-term performance.

APR Benchmarks and Penalties

Teams that fail to achieve an APR score of 930-equivalent to a 50% graduation rate-may be penalized. The APR was introduced to promote accountability and prioritize academic achievement across collegiate athletics.

Minimum APR Score: A team needs to maintain a minimum APR score to avoid penalties.
Penalties: Teams that don't make the 930 APR threshold are subject to sanctions. The first penalty level limits teams to 16 hours of athletics activities per week over five days (as opposed to 20 over six days), with the lost four hours to be replaced with academic activities. Prior to 2010-11, only four teams had received postseason bans. Starting with the 2008-09 academic year, bans from postseason competition were added to the penalty structure.

While postseason bans are commonly applied as a penalty in the NCAA enforcement process, they are not considered as a penalty for poor academic performance. Instead, the requirement that teams achieve a minimum APR is simply a benchmark for participation in championships.

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APR Adjustments and Exceptions

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.

A university with players transferring out and in could still have a perfect score because an allowance is made whereby a player does not ‘lose a point’ for leaving school to transfer, turn professional, or just decide to take a break, if they have a GPA of at least 2.6. When a student-athlete transfers from a Division I university to another 4-year university, their team can lose a “retention point” unless the athlete has a GPA of at least 2.60. The reason? When a transferring athlete has a GPA of 2.60 or higher, their team can receive an APR “adjustment” so that they won’t lose the retention point for that athlete. As a result, that team’s APR won’t be negatively impacted by the athlete’s transfer.

It is unclear if the 2.6 GPA is for the last semester the player was in the school they are leaving, or is it a cumulative GPA?

APR and Graduation Rates: Additional Metrics

Compiling college athletes' graduation rates stemmed partly from press coverage that 76 to 92 percent of professional athletes lacked college degrees and from revelations that some were functionally illiterate.

In addition to the APR, the NCAA uses other metrics to assess the academic success of student-athletes:

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Graduation Success Rate (GSR): As part of this strategy, the NCAA strives “to ensure the academic commitment of student-athletes and to increase the likelihood that they will earn degrees.” Along these lines, in 2005 the NCAA formulated a tool called the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for Division I schools. GSR basically removes athletes who leave an institution in good academic standing from the denominator and adds those who transfer in and eventually graduate to the sample. The latest single-year GSR for all NCAA Division I athletes (who began college in 2004) was 82 percent.
Federal Graduation Rate (FGR): Another indicator of the academic performance of student athletes is the Federal Graduation Rate, FGR, 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. Those student-athletes who transfer to an institution (e.g. 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.

Institutional Efforts to Improve APR

Universities employ various strategies to support student-athletes' academic success and improve their APR scores. ASU’s historic APR improvement is tied to tools and strategies employed by Athletics’ Academic Coaches.

Pulling information from Canvas, ASU’s Learning Management System, UTO’s Data and Analysis team created a dashboard that visualizes and provides nearly-daily updates on students’ academic performance. The Office of Student Athlete Development then uses an in-house sorting process to evaluate students’ academic progress, called the Graduation Risk Overview. By coding athletes’ academic performance in different categories, such as GPA, first generation college student, test score averages, and much more, the Academic Coaches assign red, yellow or green status.

Examples of APR Performance

Notre Dame leads the power conferences with 17 teams attaining perfect scores. Duke is second among power conferences with 16 teams having perfect scores. In the ACC, Clemson and Boston College had 10, NC State 9, UNC 4 and Wake Forest 2.

Digging in a bit on Football, the big four schools in the ACC have APR as follows: UNC 996, Wake Forest 995, Duke 987 and NC State 987. There is only one football team with a perfect score this year for football, and it is Ohio State, the National Champion.

Criticisms and Considerations

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. 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. Furthermore, it is not always relevant to compare APR scores across universities because the academic rigors between universities differ.

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