2009 NCAA Division I Academic Progress Rate (APR) Reports

PRINCETON, N.J. — Two weeks ago, the Ivy League had by far the best confererence record in the nation when the NCAA released its list of Division I teams that were "commended" based upon their Academic Progress Report (APR) ratings. Today the Ivy League has scored big again as the NCAA released its sport-by-sport APR progress report. Of the Ivy League championship sports that are also NCAA sports, the Ivy League has the nation's top APR average in nearly 70 percent (20 of 29).

The 20 sports are Baseball, Men's and Women's Basketball, Men's and Women's Cross Country, Football, Men's Golf, Men's and Women's Ice Hockey, Men's Lacrosse, Men's and Women's Soccer, Men's and Women's Tennis, Men's and Women's Indoor Track, Men's and Women's Outdoor Track, Softball and Volleyball.

Seven other Ivy sports — Men's Swimming, Men's Wrestling, Women's Fencing, Field Hockey, Women's Golf, Women's Lacrosse and Women's Swimming — were second nationally. Four Ivy sports — Men's Heavyweight and Lightweight Rowing as well as Men's and Women's Squash — are not NCAA Championship sports.

The Academic Progress Rate, now in its fifth year, measures the eligibility, retention and graduation of student-athletes competing on every Division I sports team. It also serves as a predictor of graduation success. The most recent APR scores are multi-year rates based on the scores from the 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years.

In its April 22 release, the NCAA “commended” teams whose APR scores are in the top 10 percent of all teams within their sport, with the minimum necessary score ranging from 976 to a perfect mark of 1000 depending on the range of team scores within that sport. A total of 144 Ivy League teams were “commended” — at least one in each of the 35 NCAA sports in which at least one Ivy team competes — for an average of 18 teams at each of the eight Ivy League schools.

Ivy teams comprised 18.7% of the 767 teams honored from across 211 colleges and universities (126 Division I institutions had no commended teams). The average of 18 teams at each Ivy school is almost double the next best conference average (10.6), and more than the best score of any non-Ivy individual school.

More than three-fifths (60.3%) of the total of 239 Ivy teams in NCAA-sponsored sports were recognized. The Ivy League is the only conference to have commendations for all (eight) of its baseball, football and women’s basketball teams; seven of the eight Ivy teams were recognized in four additional sports and six Ivy teams were recognized in six more sports.

The Ivy League swept the top six rankings nationally for the second consecutive year, led by Yale with 28 honored teams, and every Ivy school was in the top 20: Yale (28, 1st), Brown (21, T-2nd), Dartmouth (21, T-2nd), Penn (19, 4th), Harvard (18, T-5th), Princeton (18, T-5th), Columbia (10, 19th), and Cornell (nine, 20th).