April 24, 2008

LEWISBURG, Pa. - Once again this spring the NCAA is honoring Division I sports teams with public recognition awards for their latest multi-year Academic Progress Rate scores, and once again Bucknell ranks among the national leaders in number of programs honored.

The recognized teams posted multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports. According to the NCAA, the APR provides a real-time look at a team's academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete. The APR includes eligibility, retention, and graduation in the calculation and provides a clear picture of the academic culture in each sport. High-performing teams receiving awards posted APR scores ranging from 965 to a perfect 1,000.

Multi-year APR scores for all Division I sports teams, including the teams receiving Public Recognition Awards, will be announced May 6.

For the second straight year, 17 Bucknell varsity athletics programs received NCAA Public Recognition Awards. The honored sports are baseball, men's basketball, men's and women's cross country, football, men's and women's golf, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's tennis, women's lacrosse, women's rowing, women's swimming & diving, women's indoor and outdoor track & field, and women's water polo.

Bucknell's 17 honored teams represent 63.0 percent of the school's varsity offerings, the fourth-highest total in the nation. Only Yale (28 of 35, 80.0%), Dartmouth (24 of 33, 72.7%) and Davidson (14 of 21, 66.7%) had a higher percentage of their varsity programs honored by the NCAA.

In terms of total number of honored programs, Bucknell ranked seventh, behind only Yale (28), Dartmouth (24), Brown (21), Penn (20), Princeton (19) and Harvard (18).

This year a total of 712 Division I programs received Public Recognition Awards, or 11.4 percent of the approximately 6,272 Division I teams. The list includes 401 women's teams and 311 men's or mixed squads. A total of 192 institutions, out of 329 Division I colleges and universities, placed at least one team on the top APR list. In some sports, teams had to maintain a perfect score over the four-year period in order to be recognized.

By conference, the Ivy Group had the most number of teams honored (150), followed by the Patriot League (89) and the Big East Conference (47). By sport, women's tennis featured the most teams (46), followed by women's volleyball (41) and women's golf (39). Men's sports with the highest number of teams were basketball and cross country (both with 33) and golf (32). This is the first year that basketball led men's sports.

This recognition represents a continuation of widespread national acknowledgement of Bucknell's scholar-athlete success. Bucknell annually ranks among the national leaders in graduation rates, and the Bison rank fifth nationally in total number of Academic All-Americans.

Under the APR system, a student-athlete can be awarded two points per semester - one for remaining academically eligible throughout the semester and another for being retained for the next term. Team percentages are then calculated to determine its APR. The upcoming APR report will represent a four-year average based on institutional reporting for the 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 academic years. Teams that do not meet a baseline score of 925 could face sanctions such as loss of scholarships.

Last year, 24 Bucknell programs boasted perfect 1,000 scores for the 2005-06 reporting period, and 13 programs reported perfect 1,000 scores in the rolling rate. All other Bison programs were well above the national average, with every program scoring at least a 972.

Bucknell is a highly-selective, privately endowed liberal arts institution with an enrollment of approximately 3,400 undergraduate students. Bucknell competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the Patriot League and has full membership along with American, Army, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy. Bucknell has won the Presidents' Cup, signifying the Patriot League's all-sports champion, in 13 of 17 years, including nine of the last 10.