COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Fourteen intercollegiate sport programs at the University of Maryland maintained or improved their multiyear APR scores in the newest 2014-2015 APP report as announced by the NCAA Wednesday while thirteen teams earned multiyear Academic Progress Rates (APR) at or above .970.
Nine sports programs led by men's golf, women's basketball, women's cross country, field hockey women's lacrosse, softball, tennis, women's track-indoor, and women's track-outdoor earned perfect single year APR scores of 1000 for the 2014-15 academic year. Fourteen of Maryland's 20 sports programs earned single-year APR scores of .970 or higher.
Football earned a multiyear score of .977 and single-year APR score of .990. The multiyear score is a program-best since the APR's inception in 2003. Football's multi-year score of .977 shows improvement from last year's score of .973. The football program has made significant strides since 2009-10 when the multiyear was .922, single year was .905, and the program was assessed a contemporaneous penalty losing three scholarships.
Women's basketball and men's basketball earned multiyear rates of .990 and .953, respectively. Women's basketball has earned perfect single-year APR score of 1000 three years in a row as noted in the 2014-2015 APP report. Twenty-five of 27 men's basketball student-athletes, who have exhausted their eligibility, have graduated since the 2006-07 season.
"We are so incredibly proud of the hard work, dedication and commitment our student-athletes continue to showcase in the classroom,” Maryland director of athletics Kevin Anderson said. “Our student-athletes demonstrate a relentless desire to succeed on the playing field and also accomplishing their ultimate goal of earning a degree from the University of Maryland.”
The newly released multiyear APR scores are comprised of data submitted for 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15. The APR index was developed by the NCAA to provide a "real time" snapshot on a semester-by-semester basis in order to measure the eligibility and retention of student-athletes in all Division I institutions. The APR is part of a larger package of initiatives, 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, all student-athletes receiving athletics financial aid are considered "counters" and each semester receive one point for retention/graduation and one point for meeting NCAA and University of Maryland eligibility standards for competition. The maximum number of APR points a student-athlete can earn in an academic year is four (2 in the fall semester and 2 in the spring semester). A team's APR is the total number of eligibility/retention points earned divided by the maximum number of points possible. This APR number is then multiplied by 1000. (For example, a team which receives 94 percent of all possible points would have a team APR of 940.)
