Academic Progress Rate - Potential Misinterpretations

Potential Misinterpretations

While the numbers represented in the APR have a certain significance, there can be misrepresentations for people unfamiliar with what the APR is showing. For example, the APR only applies to students that receive athletic financial aid, which is by no means all varsity athletes at a university. NCAA's 1,265 member colleges and universities report that they have more than 355,000 student-athletes playing each year. Approximately 36% of these NCAA student-athletes receive a share of the $1 billion earmarked for athletic scholarships. Another common misuse of the data occurs when APR results are compared between universities. This is usually not a valid comparison unless it is viewed alongside the graduation rates for non athletes at the institution. For example, one institution may have an APR representing that only 50% of athletes are on track to graduate which seems like athletes are under performing at the university. However, if the graduation rate for non-athletes is also 50% then the low graduation rate for the athletes is not a student-athlete problem, but a university wide problem. Furthermore, it is not always relevant to compare APR scores across universities because the academic rigors between universities differ. For example, at some high performing academic universities freshman struggle with eligibility because the workload is hard to deal with initially, but in the end, those students find academic success.