University of Connecticut Athletics
Five Teams Earn Perfect Graduation Success Rate
10/26/2011 12:00:00 AM | General
Oct. 26, 2011
STORRS, Conn. - Fifteen of the 24 athletic programs at the University of Connecticut met or exceeded the national average as the NCAA released its latest Graduate Success Rate (GSR) report on Tuesday.
UConn's men's soccer, men's golf, field hockey, lacrosse and women's tennis teams all earned a perfect 100 percent mark for this report. UConn's other teams that exceeded the national average of 82 percent were: women's ice hockey (95), softball (93), women's basketball (90), women's soccer (90), men's swimming and diving (85), women's swimming and diving (83), women's cross country/track and field (83), men's tennis (86) and men's ice hockey (82).
"The University of Connecticut is proud of the academic achievements of all of our student-athletes," says UConn President Susan Herbst. "The fact that we had five teams earn a perfect score and the majority of our others were above the national average or the average for their particular sport is a testament to the value that we put on the `student' part of the student-athlete here at UConn. I want to congratulate the student-athletes on their success and offer my thanks to the coaching staffs, our academic support areas and the University faculty."
The UConn football team had a 75 percentage graduate rate, which places it tied for fourth in the BIG EAST but within four percentage points of two schools tied for second. The 75 percent mark was also well ahead of the national GSR for football bowl subdivision teams, which was 67 percent.
The UConn women's basketball team's GSR of 90 bested the national average for the sport by four points. The team's federal GSR was 17-points higher than the national average.
UConn's baseball team had a GSR of 81 percent, placing it well ahead of the national average for that sport of 72 percent.
The UConn men's basketball team posted a graduation rate of 25 percent in the latest report. "The one exception to our excellence in the GSR report is men's basketball, but we began an aggressive plan to remedy that starting with the 2011 spring semester. When the NCAA announces the next round of APR (Academic Progress Rate) scores next spring, it is our expectation that there will be an outstanding one-year 2010-11 mark for the UConn men's basketball team that will be well above all the quantitative thresholds being discussed by the NCAA. Continued and expected academic success in our men's basketball program will allow us to see a continued rise in our four-year APR scores."
The GSR data show the percentage of student-athletes earning a degree within six years. The NCAA developed the GSR to account for transfer student-athletes, midyear enrollees and others not tracked by the federal graduation rate. The GSR captures about 37 percent more students than the federal rate, resulting in a more accurate assessment of the academic success of student-athletes. The 2011 national GSR (four-class average) for Division I is a record-high 80 percent. The 2011 GSR numbers are based on entering classes from 2001 to 2004.
