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The NCAA reports that Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores are up across the Division I membership, and BYU's scores are up, too, with mutli-year APRs increasing in 15 of 21 sports, resulting in a six-point improvement over last year's results.
The NCAA DI APR average for 2012 is 973, up from 970 in 2011. BYU's 21-sport APR average for 2012 lands right at the NCAA DI median of 973, an improvement from the school's APR score of 967 in 2011.
BYU's men's sports averaged a 2012 APR of 965, while the women's sports average was 979.
Dave Rose's basketball team (multi-year APR of 985) is the only BYU program singled out for a Public Recognition Award, as it has been for all seven seasons of Rose's tenure. The awards are given to programs whose multi-year APR scores are ranked in the top 10% of each sport.
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The NCAA defines the APR as a "term-by-term measure of eligibility and retention for Division I student-athletes that was developed as an early indicator of eventual graduation rates."
APR is a snapshot metric relative to academic progress, and not a timeline measurement, also known as Graduation Success Rate (GSR). Because of the number of BYU student-athletes who embark on two-year LDS Church missions, BYU's GSR numbers would often not accurately represent those student-athletes' academic progress. As noted last year in this space, APR was developed by the NCAA "as a more real-time assessment of teams' academic performance than the six-year graduation-rate (GSR) calculation provides."
To calculate APR, up to two points each term are awarded to scholarship student-athletes who:
a) meet academic-eligibility standards (E)
and
b) remain with the institution (R)
The E point is awarded if the student-athlete is academically eligible to compete in the next regular academic term (even if he or she has no competition in that term). The R point is awarded if the student-athlete is retained by the institution in the next regular academic term. Student-athletes who graduate in a term are awarded both points for that term.
A team's APR is the total points earned by the team at a given time divided by the total points possible (multiplied by 1,000).
Student-athletes who leave an institution can still earn an E point for their program based on certain exceptions; i.e. a player who leaves school to turn professional may still earn a point, as long as he would have otherwise been academically eligible; the retention point requirement and calculation would be waived in that instance.
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Programs with four-year ("multi-year") rolling APR scores of 925 or lower are subject to potential penalties, should that program lose a student-athlete who would not have been academically eligible had he or she returned. Programs with scores of 900 or lower are subject to what are called "historical" penalties: significant sanctions for teams that the APR identifies as chronic under-performers.
None of BYU's 21 sports have multi-year APR scores lower than 925, while the two sports which flirted with the 925 cut line in 2011 saw notable improvements in 2012.
Bronco Mendenhall's football program had a 2011 APR of 929, but after a single-year APR of 955 for the 2010-11 academic year, BYU Football's APR rose to a multi-year score of 932, also clear of the new 930 cutline, to take effect in 2014-15.
BYU's baseball team improved from a 928 multi-year APR in 2011 to a 943 score in 2012, after a 991 performance in the 2010-11 academic year.
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BYU's across-all-sports APR results for 2012 show that football is the only sport within ten points of the new cutline, with 19 of the 21 sports at least 30 points clear of the increased standard.
As was the case last year, seven of BYU's 21 teams earned perfect single-year APR scores of 1,000 in the 2010-11 academic year:
Men's Cross Country (second consecutive year)
Men's Golf
Women's Basketball
Women's Cross Country
Women's Soccer
Softball (second consecutive year)
Women's Swimming/Diving
Women's Tennis
You can search the NCAA database to see how BYU and all other DI schools have performed historically in every sport, since APR was introduced in 2004-05.
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Note: APR numbers only account for student-athletes on scholarship. Walk-on roster members are not included in the measurements.
