Brown, Bucknell, Princeton & Harvard Receive NCAA APR Public Recognition Awards

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Brown University (men/women), Bucknell University (women), Princeton University (women) and Harvard University (men) of the Collegiate Water Polo Association were honored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) with Public Recognition Awards for achieving outstanding Academic Progress Rates (APR) in 2009.

These awards are given each year to teams scoring in the top 10 percent in each sport with their APRs.

The APR provides a real-time look at a team’s academic success each semester or quarter by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete. The APR includes eligibility, retention, and graduation in the calculation and provides a clear picture of the academic culture in each sport.

Nearly 800 NCAA programs were honored this year in 39 sports.  High-performing teams receiving public recognition awards this year posted APR scores ranging from 976 to a perfect 1,000, said NCAA President Myles Brand.

“The vast majority of sports teams are performing very well academically and exceeding the 925 threshold for their APR scores,” Brand said. “Nearly 800 of these teams are worthy of special attention, and I commend them for their excellence in academics and athletics.”

The 767 teams publicly recognized this year for high achievement represent 11.9 percent of the approximately 6,484 Division I teams. The list includes 448 women’s teams and 319 men’s or mixed squads.

A total of 205 institutions, out of 331 Division I colleges and universities, placed at least one team on the top APR list. Another six schools that offer athletics in more than one division, out of 50 overall that do so within the NCAA, placed Division I teams on the list as well.

Last year, a total of 712 teams were recognized. The number of teams in some sports may exceed 10 percent depending on how many achieved perfect 1,000 APR scores.

Overall, the CWPA accounted for 67% of the men's teams, 60% of the women's teams and 63% of the total water polo programs honored by the NCAA as Santa Clara University (women), Stanford University (women) and University of California-Davis (men) were the other teams honored this year.

The sport of water polo joins bowling, fencing, field hockey, rifle, men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics, women's golf, skiing, rowing and women's tennis as having no penalties awarded for under performance.

Every Division I sports team calculates its APR each academic year, based on the eligibility, retention and graduation of each scholarship student-athlete. Teams that score below 925 and have a student leave school academically ineligible can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships through contemporaneous penalties. Teams can also be subject to historically based penalties for poor academic performance over time. This year will be the first year teams will be assessed a postseason ban for continued poor academic performance.

APR scores per institution, along with penalties by school, sport and penalty type and teams receiving public recognition, are available online at www.ncaa.org.