May 6, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS -- Director of Athletics Dr. Sheahon Zenger announced Wednesday that all athletic programs at Illinois State have exceeded the NCAA's threshold for Academic Progress Rate (APR) for the fifth-straight year of its existence. In addition, 18 of ISU's 19 programs are above the national average and all of ISU's programs improved or maintained their average from the previous year.
"As an institution of higher learning, we want to continually strive for excellence in the classroom," said Zenger. "I'm really proud with how our coaches and student-athletes have not only embraced the NCAA's APR policy, but how they have exceeded it. Illinois State Athletics continues to be in select company among our peers and once again, none of our programs are subject to any penalties."
The Redbird men's tennis team highlighted ISU's APR status as it was ranked among the top-10 percent of nationally-recognized teams, as announced by the NCAA in mid-April, for a perfect four-year multi-year APR score of 1,000.
The intent of the APR rating is to provide a real-time snapshot of an institution's current academic progress, and takes each scholarship student-athletes' eligibility status, retention and graduation into account on a term-by-term mathematical basis. Teams falling below a calculated APR score of 925 could lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships. The NCAA began assessing schools APR in 2003-2004 and will report data on a four-year rolling scale.
Multi-year APR scores for all Division I sports teams, including the teams receiving public recognition awards, were announced today. The announcement also will include immediate and historical penalties for low-performing teams. The most recent APRs are multi-year rates based on scores from the 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years.
