New Mexico Athletic Teams Get Passing Grades on APR

Over the six-year his­tory of the NCAA’s Aca­d­e­mic Progress Rate (APR), the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico has steadily shown improve­ment, but it’s going to be hard to top the offi­cial 2009-10 scores released recently by the NCAA. For the first time in school his­tory, all 21 UNM sports are above the 925 thresh­old for their four-year rolling score. In addi­tion, the Lobos had a single-year APR score of 973, the high­est in the six-year his­tory of the APR, and nearly 50 points higher than five years ago.

While all 21 sports are above 925, 14 sports can boast their highest-ever four-year APR score, includ­ing base­ball, foot­ball, men’s bas­ket­ball, men’s cross coun­try, men’s golf, men’s ski­ing, men’s soc­cer, men’s ten­nis, women’s bas­ket­ball, women’s cross coun­try, women’s soft­ball, women’s indoor track, women’s out­door track, and women’s vol­ley­ball. Last week, women’s bas­ket­ball and men’s cross coun­try were all hon­ored with pub­lic recog­ni­tion from the NCAA for being in the top 10 per­cent nation­ally in APR.

“We are very proud of the fine aca­d­e­mic track record of our student-athletes,” said Pres­i­dent David J. Schmidly. “In the last two years we have had 19 CoSIDA Aca­d­e­mic All-District hon­orees, and five Aca­d­e­mic All-Americans so far, giv­ing us some great indi­vid­ual suc­cesses. Hav­ing all 21 sports score at least a 925 show­cases not just team suc­cess, but depart­ment success.”

The single-year 2009-10 APR scores for the Lobos fea­ture nine dif­fer­ent pro­grams record­ing a per­fect 1000 score. Men’s Cross Coun­try, men’s golf, men’s ski­ing, men’s ten­nis, women’s bas­ket­ball, women’s golf, women’s soc­cer, women’s soft­ball, and women’s vol­ley­ball all had per­fect eli­gi­bil­ity and reten­tion scores. The nine per­fect scores is more than dou­ble the four recorded in 2008-09, and tops the pre­vi­ous record of seven, recorded in 2006-07.

“A lot of dif­fer­ent things go into hav­ing an incred­i­ble APR report such as this,” said Vice Pres­i­dent for Ath­let­ics Paul Krebs. “We have made a con­cen­trated effort with our aca­d­e­mic staff and have made rais­ing our APR scores a pri­or­ity, and it’s really a case of a lot of hard work pay­ing off. Cer­tainly our entire staff at our Aca­d­e­mic Suc­cess Cen­ter needs to be com­mended, as do the coaches and student-athletes.”

Also of note, 17 of UNM’s 21 sports improved their single-season score from what was posted five years ago, led by ski­ing, who went from an 882 in 2005-06 to a per­fect 1000. Of the four sports that didn’t improve, three recorded per­fect 1000s in both 2005-06 and 2009-10, and one dropped from 1000 to 944.

Accord­ing to the NCAA, “The APR is cal­cu­lated by allo­cat­ing points for eli­gi­bil­ity and reten­tion — the two fac­tors that research iden­ti­fies as the best indi­ca­tors of grad­u­a­tion. Each player on a given ros­ter earns a max­i­mum of two points per term, one for being aca­d­e­m­i­cally eli­gi­ble and one for stay­ing with the insti­tu­tion. A team’s APR is the total points of a team’s ros­ter at a given time divided by the total points pos­si­ble. Since this results in a dec­i­mal num­ber, the num­ber is mul­ti­plied by 1,000 for ease of ref­er­ence. Thus, a raw APR score of .925 trans­lates into the 925 that will become the stan­dard terminology.”

The APR is a rolling four-year aver­age, mean­ing the new scores for 2009-10 replace the 2005-06 single-rate scores, giv­ing the school a new four-year average.

Below are the APR scores for all Lobo Sports pro­grams
Men’s Pro­grams
Base­ball — 947
Foot­ball — 947
Bas­ket­ball — 932
Cross Coun­try — 1000
Golf — 968
Ski­ing — 957
Soc­cer — 972
Ten­nis — 978
Track, Indoor — 928
Track, Out­door — 928

Women’s Pro­grams
Soft­ball — 977
Bas­ket­ball — 996
Cross Coun­try — 966
Golf — 991
Ski­ing – 957
Soc­cer — 972
Swim­ming — 985
Ten­nis — 969
Track, Indoor — 961
Track, Out­door — 958
Vol­ley­ball — 980