The University of Virginia athletics program continued to display impressive results in the classroom, according to the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate Institutional Report, released Tuesday.
Four Cavalier programs posted perfect multi-year scores of 1,000. Eighteen of UVA’s 23 varsity teams covered in the report had a perfect Academic Progress Rate for the 2020-21 academic year.
Implemented in 2003 as part of an ambitious academic reform effort in Division I, the Academic Progress Rate holds institutions accountable for the academic performance of their student-athletes through a team-based metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of each student-athlete for each academic term.
Each academic year, every Division I sports team across the country calculates its APR using a simple and consistent formula. Each term, scholarship student-athletes can earn one point for remaining eligible and one point for staying in school or graduating. For schools that do not offer scholarships, recruited student-athletes are tracked.
According to the NCAA, the national four-year Academic Progress Rate for the current report is 984, up one point from the last publicly reported rate in May 2020. UVA’s multi-year average for its 23 programs during the current reporting period is 991. (For purposes of the report, indoor and outdoor track and field seasons are combined. UVA’s men’s and women’s squash programs are not included in the report since they are not NCAA Championship-sponsored programs.)
This year, the APR score was a multi-year average of the 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years.
The public announcement of APRs returned after a one-year hiatus. This spring, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved the continued suspension of APR penalties (the minimum APR academic standard for each team is 930) for an additional year, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, it supported the public release of the APR data.
All 23 UVA sports programs included in the report exceeded the required minimum APR of 930. Four Cavalier programs – women’s cross country, women’s golf, women’s lacrosse and women’s track and field – posted perfect multi-year scores of 1,000, and 17 of 23 had a score of at least 990.
It marks the 12th time the UVA women’s golf team has been recognized, the fifth time for women’s lacrosse and women’s cross country and first time for women’s track.
The Cavalier football program’s multi-year score of 983 is its highest in the history of the APR program that dates back to the 2004-05 academic season. Men’s lacrosse (998) also posted an all-time best mark, while men’s swimming and diving (997), wrestling (993) and women’s tennis (992) equaled their previous best APR multi-year scores.
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April 19, 2024
