May 17, 2011

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COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The University of Maryland men's cross country team was chosen for public recognition Tuesday by the NCAA for being among the top 10 percent of programs in the nation in Academic Progress Rates in their sport.

The public recognition program was developed by the NCAA to acknowledge those varsity teams that are leading the nation in the progress goals set forth as part of the Academic Performance Program. Maryland's men's cross county team also earned recognition in the 2004-05 academic year.

"We are proud that the men's cross country program has been recognized for sustaining such a high level of success academically," said director of athletics Kevin Anderson. "Committing ourselves to academic progress is vital to the growth of our student-athletes. We will strive to continue to improve in this area so that additional teams earn this recognition in the future."

The APR is an index developed by the NCAA to provide, by team, a real-time snapshot of student-athlete retention and eligibility performance of all Division I institutions. Also allowed are bonus points for student-athletes returning to graduate. The APR is part of a larger system package, the NCAA Academic Performance Program, which was mandated by the NCAA Board of Directors to improve the academic performance of athletic teams.

In calculating the APR, each student-athlete who receives athletics aid receives one point for continuing as a full-time student or graduating, and one point for remaining eligible to compete each semester. The maximum number of points a student-athlete can earn in an academic year is four.

A team's APR is the total number of points earned divided by the maximum number of points possible. This APR number is then multiplied by 1,000. (For example, a team which receives 94 percent of all possible points would have a team APR of 940.)

Team-by-team APRs for all schools nationally will be released by the NCAA on May 24.

Full information regarding today's release nationwide is available at www.ncaa.org.