Graduation Success Report For Georgia Tech

Oct. 25, 2012

THE FLATS – The Graduation Success Report released today by the NCAA reveals that Georgia Tech’s student-athlete Graduation Success Rate (GSR) holds steady at 76 percent. In comparison, the Institute’s overall Graduation Rate for the same time period is 79 percent.

The 2005-06 student-athlete freshmen class is combined with the three previous years to compile Georgia Tech’s most recent overall Student-Athlete Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 76%. This is 1% off last year’s rate and is Georgia Tech’s second-highest recorded score since GSR’s introduction in 2005.

“We are pleased with our overall graduation success rate and continue to provide resources to improve,” said athletic director Dan Radakovich. “In the last few years we have seen some of our highest Academic Progress Rates (APR) – measurements of retention and eligibility for our student-athletes each semester. We will see these APR numbers positively impact our GSR in the very near future. Our student-athletes, coaches, and academic staff are doing a great job of keeping on track for graduation.”

Some details:

Similar to last year, seven of Tech’s combined 13 GSR sportshad a 100% graduation rate for those students who began school inthe 2005-06 school year [baseball, golf, men’s and women’sswimming/diving, women’s basketball, women’s tennis andvolleyball].
Golf and women’s swimming/diving once again scored a perfect 100%GSR (4-year average).
More than half of the teams improved or had no change to their GSRscore compared to last year’s data.
Football again recorded a GSR of 55%. Look for football’s GSR toincrease next year as nearly 75% of our 2006-07 football GSRfreshman class have already graduated and will be added into thefootball GSR calculation.
Men’s basketball has a GSR of 18%. This is due largely to many ofthe student-athletes pursuing professional athletics prior tograduating. Look for men’s basketball GSR to steadily improve inthe next few years with the inclusion of several recent graduatingclasses including recent graduates Zach Peacock, Brad Sheehan, Lance Storrs, and Mo Miller. Those that did not graduate in thelast few years have gone on to impressive professional careers:Gani Lawal (PHX Suns) and Thaddeus Young (76ers). Additionally, BJ Elder (2012) and TJVines (2010) both recently graduated but neither count towards theGSR metric because they graduated in more than 6 years.
The Federal Graduation Rate for all Georgia Tech students for the2005 freshman cohort is 79% (down 1% from last year). Thefour-class average for all Georgia Tech students remains the sameat 79%.

GSR Background:

GSR definition/explanation: GSR measures graduation rates at Division I institutions and includes students transferring into the institutions. The GSR also allows institutions to exclude student-athletes who leave their institutions prior to graduation as long as they would have been academically eligible to compete had they remained.

GSR is often compared to the Federal Graduation Rate. The federal rate does NOT factor transfers IN or transfers OUT who leave eligible. Essentially the federal rate treats all transfers out as graduation failures. The NCAA believes the GSR is a more accurate and useful measurement of graduation success.

The period of time for inclusion for both graduation metrics is six years from initial full-time enrollment.
– GSR Cohort (4-year average) = Averages four consecutive incoming classes on their graduation success.
– Each student has six years from their start date to complete their degree. – 2005[-06] Cohort consists of GT students who started full time in the follow years: (1) 2002-03, (2)2003-04, (3)2004-05, (4)2005-06

GSR is just one part of the NCAA’s Academic reform. This three-part system consists of new standards, both initial eligibility and progress toward degree; new metrics, the APR and the GSR; and new consequences through APR penalties. These three taken together are the essential pieces of academic reform.