Teams score well in NCAA academic progress report

In a new report issued by the NCAA, 16 of 17 Tech sports programs scored highly enough academically so that they would avoid penalties and the possible loss of scholarships.

The Feb. 28 report used a new statistic, the Academic Progress Rate (APR) to grade all NCAA sports programs and assign them a score. Tech ' s overall score for all sports was a 964; the required minimum score was 925. Men ' s baseball, the only sport not above the mark, scored a 907. However, this score falls within a " confidence boundary " established for the statistic in its first year of tracking, and no penalty will be assessed.

The APR is intended to track current academic progress and serve as a better indicator than the Federal Graduation Rate statistic, currently the only standard for tracking academic performance in NCAA programs.

The NCAA judged the Federal Graduation Rate to be insufficient due to the lag between athlete performance and the statistic ' s publication data. " [The] old approach was badly flawed and reflected academic performance six years ago, " said Institute President Wayne Clough in an email.

The information could not be used to assess penalties because in many cases, the school ' s academic performance changed drastically over the course of a few years.

" The whole idea of the APR is its currency, " said George Nemhauser, Industrial and Systems Engineering professor and Tech ' s faculty representative to the NCAA. " It ' s up to date...and in that sense it gives you a better read. "

Under the APR, each scholarship athlete on a squad is assigned two points per semester: one for being academically eligible and one for retention. Each player, then, is worth four points per year. A player who is academically eligible for both fall and spring semesters and stays in school throughout both semesters would earn four out of four points.

Total points earned by a team are divided by total points possible to obtain a percentage, which is then multiplied by 1000 for the resulting APR score.

Retention is defined as a player staying at his or her current school - transfers and dropouts alike do not earn this point. While dropouts or transfers may be academically eligible at the time of their withdrawal from school, they still would not earn the retention point assigned to them, just the academic eligibility point.

While this year ' s scores will not lead to penalties against any school because the system is still being refined, the NCAA intends to use the APR to punish schools that do not put sufficient effort into educating their athletes. " All this business is about looking at some horrible numbers that mainly occur in men ' s sports only - basketball, baseball and football. Just looking at some rather appalling statistics is what motivated all this, " Nemhauser said.

Administrators say they are pleased with Tech ' s performance on the first year ' s benchmarks. " Our overall APR scores and sport by sport scores are excellent, particularly for a Division I-A university. This reflects the quality of our student athletes and coaches. And they accomplished this at Georgia Tech, a university with no easy majors or courses, " Clough said.

Men ' s baseball, which did not do as well on the report as other Tech sports, was hampered by the number of players who are signed to play professionally. " The whole thing is, the better your team is, the more chance you have of losing a guy, " said Director of Athletics Dave Braine. According to Nemhauser, Major League Baseball ' s policy on collegiate players is generally to sign players at the conclusion of their junior year. " Our baseball team is academically by no means the weakest of our teams, " he said. " Leaving after three years is very common for these baseball players. " Baseball ' s statistics are further hurt by the small number of players on the squad. The NCAA takes squad size into consideration when determining penalties, and baseball is within the confidence boundary for their size. This means they would not be subject to penalties despite scoring under 925. However, the confidence boundary is expected to be reduced over time. Nemhauser said at some point in the future, it would be eliminated.

Tech ' s score compares favorably to that of other schools around the nation, but is only average for the ACC. Duke, with a score of 984, attained the highest score in the conference, while N.C. State brought up the bottom of the pack with a 929. The University of Georgia scored a 943, one point below the average for all Division I-A schools.

Nemhauser said the score is likely to be refined further to avoid penalizing schools for academically eligible students transferring to another institution. The NCAA is also expected to introduce another measurement, the Graduation Success Rate (GSR), which will account for those students in a more appropriate fashion.The refinements would likely benefit Tech ' s scores.