GSR Reflects Academic Success

STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford Athletics registered an overall graduation rate of 96 percent in the latest Graduation Success Rate, with 16 programs earning a 100 percent graduation rate.

Both the Graduation Success Rate and Federal Graduation Rates are based upon the percentage of student-athletes who began college in 2013 and earned a degree within six years. The NCAA developed the Graduation Success Rate to account for transfer student-athletes, mid-year enrollees and others not tracked by the Federal Graduation Rates. Stanford student-athletes have a Federal Graduation Rates four-class average of 93 percent.

Stanford's nine women's programs achieving perfect GSR scores were: basketball, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, rowing, soccer, tennis, volleyball, and water polo. Seven men's programs also were perfect: baseball, basketball, fencing, golf, tennis, water polo, and wrestling. 

Other programs to check in at 90 percent or higher were men's swimming and diving (96), women's swimming and diving (96), women's cross country and track and field (96), men's volleyball (93), softball (93), women's lacrosse (92), and football (90).

Stanford has continued to enhance its reputation as the nation's leader in combining academics and athletics. Stanford has collected the past 25 Learfield Sports Directors' Cups, presented to the most successful intercollegiate athletic department in the country. Stanford, which sponsors 36 varsity sports, has won at least one NCAA team title in each of the past 44 academic years, the longest streak in NCAA history.

Stanford claimed three national team championships in 2019-20 – in men's water polo, women's soccer, and women's volleyball-- before sports across the country were shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. Stanford has won 152 national team championships, including 126 NCAA titles.

The Graduation Success Rate is the NCAA's comprehensive calculation of student-athlete academic success. Unlike the federally mandated methodology, the NCAA rate includes incoming transfer students who graduate as well as students enrolling in the spring semester who receive athletic aid and graduate. 

The less-inclusive Federal Graduation Rates is limited to individuals in the cohort who entered their freshmen year on athletic aid while also counting any individuals in the cohort that leave the institution as a non-graduate (including transfer students who may graduate elsewhere).