The St. Thomas Aquinas College Department of Athletics was awarded the East Coast Conference Academic Success Rate Award for 2020-2021 on Thursday, as the conference celebrated the academic achievements of its student-athletes.
The Spartans earned the honor after posting an ECC-high 91 percent graduation success rate, according to the NCAA Academic Tracking System. This outstanding achievement keeps in line with the college's high academic standards, including the responsibility of making sure that student-athletes at St. Thomas Aquinas College first do well in the classroom, before trying to achieve his or her goals on the athletic field, court, course, lanes or track, thus facilitating successful progress toward graduation and degree.
This award marks the fourth consecutive ECC ASR honor for the St. Thomas Aquinas College Department of Athletics, its teams and student-athletes, as they have previously received this distinction in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
NCAA Division II Academics & the Academic Success Rate
NCAA Academic Standards
To be successful in college, students need to be prepared for college coursework. In Division II, the NCAA sets academic initial-eligibility standards that take into account GPA, standardized test scores, core courses taken in high school and the grades earned in those core courses.
All student-athletes also must meet the unique acceptance requirements of the college or university they plan to attend (which may exceed NCAA standards)
Continuing Academic Success
Student-athletes commit to academic achievement and the pursuit of a degree, and they are required to meet yearly standards to be able to compete. College athletes' success is tracked using three measures: grades, minimum credit hours per year and progress toward earning a degree.
Tracking Graduation Rates
The ultimate goal of the college experience is graduation, and college athletes are graduating at rates that are higher than ever.
Division II’s Academic Success Rate measures the academic success of all student-athletes, not just those who receive financial aid. Division II’s ASR is similar includes transfers into a school in the calculation, but removes students who left school while academically eligible. Because of the division’s partial scholarship financial aid model, the ASR also includes nonscholarship student-athletes who enrolled during the four years covered in the most recent data.
The NCAA ASR (Division II) was formed when presidents and chancellors in Division II called for the Association to develop a measure of graduation success that better reflects transfer patterns and the population of student-athletes in higher education. The ASR counts transfer students, unlike the federal graduation rate, and the ASR includes nonscholarship student-athletes.