Sun Belt Conference programs continue to excel in the classroom according to the latest NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR) data release by the NCAA national office.
In conference-sponsored sports, the Sun Belt posted an overall APR score of 980 with 36 programs earning perfect scores of 1,000 from data submitted for the 2019-20 through 2022-23 academic years. The overall APR marks a two-point improvement over last year’s report.
Marshall led all member schools with four programs recording perfect scores, including women’s cross country, women’s golf, women’s swimming & diving and women’s tennis.
App State, Arkansas State, Georgia State, James Madison, Old Dominion and Troy each had three programs post perfect marks, respectively.
Sun Belt women’s golf and women’s swimming & diving programs tied for the highest single-sport APR (997), as nine of the 13 women’s golf teams recorded perfect scores, including Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, James Madison, ULM, Marshall, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Texas State and Troy.
The APR, created to provide a real-time measurement of academic success rather than the six-year delay with graduation rates, is a team-based metric in which scholarship student-athletes earn one point for each term in which they remain academically eligible and one point for returning to school or graduating.
Schools that do not offer athletics aid track the eligibility and retention of their recruited student-athletes within their APR cohorts.
Every Division I athletics program submits data to the NCAA as part of the Academic Progress Rate calculation. The NCAA reports both single-year and four-year rates. National aggregates are based on all teams with usable, member-provided data.
