USciences Athletic Programs Have High Academic Success

The NCAA today released its 2010 Division II Academic Success Rate (ASR) and federal graduation rate data for all of its Division II institutions.  The University of the Sciences had ten of their 12 athletic programs produce an Academic Success Rate of 100% for the cohort year 2003. 

The Devils athletic programs also recorded an overall academic success rate of 99%, which is the best rate amongst all 14 institutions within the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference. 

Amongst the conference sport programs, the USciences baseball team was the only baseball program within the conference to record a 100% rate and the men’s cross country program had the highest rate (90%) amongst all the CACC men’s cross country programs. 

The men’s basketball program was one of only two basketball programs within the conference and to record a 100% rate as was the men’s tennis program.  In addition, the men’s basketball program was just one of three in the northeast region to have a 100% success rate. 

The institution’s women’s basketball program fared equally as well with a 100% rate and was one of only three programs within the conference to have a perfect mark.  

All six women’s programs had a success rate of 100% with the cross country, softball, rifle, volleyball and tennis teams joining the women’s basketball program with a perfect mark. 

Women’s cross country was one of only three and women’s tennis and women’s softball were one of only four programs in their respective sport within the CACC to record 100% rate.  The women’s volleyball team was one of only six volleyball programs within the CACC to have a 100% rate. 

Joining the men’s baseball, basketball and tennis programs with 100% success rate was the mixed rifle team.  The men’s golf team recorded a 93% rate which was also the third best amongst all CACC golf programs.

This is the fifth year for the Division II Academic Success Rate, and it continues to demonstrate that student-athletes graduate at a much higher rate than the general student body.  The Division II ASR was developed at the request of presidents who believed the federal graduation rate was flawed.   Division II’s ASR data is similar to the Division I Graduation Success Rate as it takes transfer students into account and removes students who left the institution in good academic standing. However, given the partial-scholarship financial aid model of Division II, ASR goes one step further and includes student-athletes not receiving athletic scholarships. The result is that ASR captures more than twice the enrolled student-athletes as the federal rate, largely because more than 34,000 non-scholarship student-athletes are included in the NCAA calculation.

The overall ASR for the entering class of 2003 is 73 percent, which represents a two percent increase over last year. The four-year average increased one percent to 71 percent.   Division II female student-athletes for the entering class of 2003 had an 84 percent graduation rate, a two-point increase. The ASR for male student-athletes increased two percent to 66 percent.