Academic Progress Reports: Leadership Implications for College Basketball Coaches

Abstract

The Academic Progress Report, commonly referred to as APR, is an evaluation tool established by the NCAA to monitor current academic progress for Division I intercollegiate student-athletes in regard to eligibility, retention, and graduation. APR data collection was initially started with the 2003-04 academic year. The first data report was released in February 2005 for all Division I member institutions. The Academic Progress Report was born out of a need to better calculate graduation rates and is a continuous assessment tool for the NCAA. Under this new system, the APR awards two points each term to student-athletes who meet all minimum academic eligibility standards and who remain at that Division I institution. The Division I Board of Directors approved 925 as the minimum cut off score for all teams. The 925 score out of a possible 1,000 translates to approximately sixty percent on the new Graduation Success Rate (GSR). The GSR is an alternate graduation rate system that was also recently launched by the NCAA. While the existing graduation rate calculation system is still in place, the new GSR accounts for outgoing transfer or incoming transfer student-athletes which the current graduation rate calculation does not. The existing graduation rate system also does not monitor student-athlete eligibility.