THE FLATS – Georgia Tech athletics matched a school record with an 89% NCAA Graduation Success Rate in the latest data released by the NCAA on Tuesday.
Georgia Tech’s 89% GSR matches the school record set in 2018. Tech has achieved a GSR of 88 percent or higher for four-straight years and has been above 80 percent for seven-consecutive years.
For the second-straight year, five of Georgia Tech’s 13 sports programs* own perfect 100-percent GSRs (women’s cross country/track, golf, softball, men’s tennis and volleyball).
Three of the five Georgia Tech teams that own 100-percent GSRs have done so multiple years in a row. Leading the way is head coach Bruce Heppler’s golf program, which has posted a 100-percent GSR all 16 years since the metric was introduced in 2005. Volleyball has recorded perfect GSRs for eight-consecutive years and women’s cross country/track and field has owned a 100-percent GSR for each of the last five years.
Ten of Georgia Tech’s 13 sports have GSRs higher than or equal to the national average for their respective sports (men’s cross country/track, women’s cross country/track, football, golf, softball, men’s swimming and diving, women’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis and volleyball), which is up from nine teams a year ago.
Golf exceeds the national average in its sport by 10 percentage points, while women’s cross country/track and field and football are nine points higher than the national averages for their sports. Softball and men’s tennis each exceed their sport’s national average by eight points.
“Once again, I’m very proud of the data that shows that student-athletes are thriving at Georgia Tech,” director of athletics Todd Stansbury said. “Not only are our student-athletes graduating at a record-setting rate, but they’re doing so from one of the world’s best academic institutions and, along the way, they’re getting opportunities for on-the-job training at some of the nation’s top businesses through the Fifth Street Bridge Program. I’m very proud of our student-athletes’ coaches’ and staff’s commitment to academic success and grateful for the environment that the Institute provides all students – including our Everyday Champion student-athletes – to thrive, both here at Tech and beyond.”
GSR measures the success of an athletics department in graduating its student-athletes within a six-year period. Unlike Federal Graduation Rate, which assesses only first-time, full-time freshmen, GSR also includes transfer students and mid-year enrollees in the sample. Student-athletes who leave an institution while in good academic standing before exhausting athletics eligibility are removed from the cohort of their initial institution (essentially passed to another squad’s GSR cohort if they transfer and removed altogether in the case of early departures for professional careers). The GSR provides a more complete and accurate look at actual student-athlete success by taking into account the full variety of participants in Division I athletics and tracking their academic outcomes.
The latest GSR cohort includes student-athletes that enrolled at Georgia Tech from 2010-13.
* cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field are compiled as one sport for Graduation Success Rate purposes
Alexander-Tharpe Fund
The Alexander-Tharpe Fund is the fundraising arm of Georgia Tech athletics, providing scholarship, operations and facilities support for Georgia Tech’s 400-plus student-athletes. Be a part of developing Georgia Tech’s Everyday Champions and helping the Yellow Jackets compete for championships at the highest levels of college athletics by supporting the A-T Fund’s Annual Athletic Scholarship Fund, which directly provides scholarships for Georgia Tech student-athletes, and the Support The Swarm Fund, created to give fans an opportunity to help Georgia Tech athletics maintain its recent momentum through the financial challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic! To learn more about supporting the Yellow Jackets, visit atfund.org.
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