May 4, 2007

Traditionally, the University of Dayton's graduation rates have been at the top of the charts, and the latest Academic Progress Report (APR) data released Wednesday, May 2 by the NCAA confirm that, and more. Four Flyer sports had a second straight year with a perfect APR, and seven other sports improved their APR from a year ago.

Men's cross country, men's golf, men's tennis, and women's golf all had perfect APR "scores" of 1000. In addition, women's rowing, which was not rated last year because it did not have enough graduates compared to squad size to give accurate data to analyze, also had a 1000 APR.

Flyer teams that improved their already strong ratings were baseball, football, women's basketball, women's cross country, women's soccer, women's tennis, and women's track. Of the remaining teams, men's basketball repeated as one of six UD teams in the top ten percent of their respective sport's APR.

"The APR is a relatively new tool in our field for measuring graduation rates," UD Vice-President and Director of Athletics Ted Kissell said, "and we're proud our APR numbers are among the best in the country. But as educators at the University of Dayton, we are more proud of the quality of student-athlete graduating from the University, including the 53 who will receive their degrees this weekend."

The NCAA compiles the APR, which measures eligibility and retention of student athletes, for every program at every Division I school. This is the third year the NCAA has released multi-year Academic Progress Rate data. This year's report covering 6,110 teams competing at the Division I level shows improvement in almost all sports.