The APR on NCAA Ranks Introduction In 2004 the NCAA developed a new standard for its Division I colleges to follow: the Academic Progress Rate, or APR. The APR is designed to keep academics of Division I colleges in the forefront, especially before sports. The APR is calculated as a score out of 970. For each student with a financial scholarship and for each student who is eligible to play, the college gains 1 point. This score is divided by the highest score the college could have gained and then multiplied by 1,000 to receive the final score. An APR of 930 predicts that 50 percent of the student athletes will graduate. A score below this qualifies a college sport team for penalties that can be as severe as banishment from the tournament for that year. With this kind of regulation in place, colleges are forced to keep the students’ academic concerns first before their athletic concerns. (NCAA) If the APR is doing its job as it was designed, schools that are successful in sports should also have high academic success since academics come first in this system. The representations of this academic success in this system are APR scores themselves and Graduation Success Rate (GSR). GSR is a score that represents the proportion of students that have graduated for the year in question. If the APR is successfully doing its job, then schools that have success in a sport should have high APR and GSR scores. Methods We organized the data we gathered by school year and rank status, which we labeled as “Ranked” and “Unranked.” For a school to be considered “Ranked,” the school’s football team had to have achieved an official NCAA ranking (between 1 and 25) for all three years we observed ( , , and ). For a school to be considered “Unranked,” the school’s football team had to have not achieved an official NCAA ranking for all three of these years. We then subdivided the large parameters of school year and rank status (“Ranked” and “Unranked”) into smaller ones: each individual school, APR and GSR scores, and Ranks (schools not ranked all three years are given a rank of N/A along with a rank for whatever years are applicable in parentheses). In order to choose colleges from which to collect data, we organized every NCAA Division I college into 2 groups, “Ranked” and “Unranked.” We then randomized the lists using an online list randomizer and picked the first five from both lists. This results in a representative random sample appropriate for unbiased statistical analysis. The colleges we were dealt were following: Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Auburn, and Texas for “Ranked;” Oregon State, Akron, Fresno State, Ball State, and Ole Miss for “Unranked.” We collected the APR and GSR scores of these colleges from the official NCAA searchable database. In order to analyze the data we elected to use a T-Test, a statistical test that compares the averages of two sets of data. This is appropriate because we are testing the same kinds of data (APR scores, GSR scores, and Ranks) of two different groups (“Ranked” and “Unranked” Division I colleges). Data and Analysis These are the data points that we gathered in the form of 3 tables: Discussion Refer to the graph to see this data in a T-Test. Clark Gentile: Hunter College Zach Diemer: College of Staten Island References Division I College Stats from 2004 to 2007 Year: Year: Year: CollegeAPRGSRRankCollegeAPRGSRRankCollegeAPRGSRRank Ranked Florida Ranked Florida Ranked Florida Georgia Georgia Georgia Wisconsi n Wisconsin935727Wisconsin Auburn Auburn967709Auburn Texas931581Texas Texas Unranked Oregon State91060 N/A Unranked Oregon State91366 N/A (21) Unranked Oregon State92670 N/A (25) Akron93157 N/AAkron92758 N/AAkron92060 N/A Fresno State95068 N/A Fresno State94570 N/A Fresno State94666 N/A Ball State94557 N/ABall State94260 N/ABall State94170 N/A Ole Miss95859 N/AOle Miss93755 N/AOle Miss93952 N/A Abstract The Academic Progress Rate or APR is designed to keep academics of Division I colleges in the forefront instead of sports. Schools under this regulation that are successful in sports should, therefore, also have high academic success. The representations of this academic success in this system are APR scores themselves and Graduation Success Rate (GSR). GSR is a score that represents the proportion of students that have graduated for the year in question. If the APR is successfully doing its job, then schools that have success in a sport should have high APR and GSR scores. If there is a high correlation between these scores and NCAA football rankings and if a T-Test shows that Ranked and Unranked colleges’ mean scores are dissimilar, there can be strong support that the APR is an effective rule to implement.