The NCAA recently released its Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores, and the University of Minnesota continues to showcase its strong student-athlete performance in the classroom.
Six Gopher programs earned a perfect 1,000 multiyear rate, which includes data from the previous four academic years. Those programs were men's basketball, men's cross country, men's golf, gymnastics, women's hockey, and volleyball.
The Gophers also had 14 of their 21 programs earn a perfect APR score in the most recent reporting year of 2023-24: baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's cross country, men's and women's golf, gymnastics, men's and women's hockey, rowing, soccer, men's swimming and diving, tennis, and volleyball.
Each Gopher program was well above the multiyear score cutline of 930. The latest multiyear scores include data from the 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24 academic years.
First tracked in 2003, APR scores are determined by eligibility and retention for each student-athlete on scholarship during a specific academic year. Each student-athlete earns one point for each semester they are enrolled and one point for each semester they are eligible for intercollegiate competition. A student-athlete can earn a maximum of four points during an academic year. Additional points are not given for student-athletes that graduate at the end of the semester; rather, the student-athlete is awarded one point for retention and one point for eligibility.
APR is then calculated by taking the number of possible points for a particular sport for the four years and dividing that number by the total number of points earned from student-athlete retention and eligibility over the same period of time. The percentage is then multiplied by 1,000 to obtain the multiyear rate used in the report.
The purpose of the APR, according to the NCAA, is to provide a "real-time snapshot" of each team's academic performance. The NCAA requires teams to maintain a minimum multiyear APR of 930 to avoid contemporaneous penalties that include postseason bans and the possibility of losing grant-in-aid for the period of one year if a student-athlete leaves school while academically ineligible. Institutions are not allowed to award the grant-in-aid from the ineligible student-athlete to a different student-athlete. The contemporaneous penalties only apply when a team below the 930 cutline does not retain an academically ineligible student-athlete.
For more information on APR, visit the NCAA website at NCAA.org.
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