April 24, 2008
STANFORD, Calif. - The NCAA honored 712 Division I sports teams with public recognition awards for their latest multi-year Academic Progress Rate scores and ten Stanford athletic teams--football, men's indoor track and field, wrestling, women's basketball, women's golf, women's gymnastics, softball, women's swimming and diving, women's volleyball and women's water polo--were rated in the top ten percent of all teams in their respective sports.
These teams posted multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports. The teams recognized this year represent 11.4 percent of the 6,272 Division I teams. The list includes 401 women's teams and 311 men's or mixed squads. A total of 192 Division I institutions had at least one team on the top APR list. High-performing teams receiving awards posted APR scores ranging from 965 to a perfect 1,000 over the data collection period.
The effort is part of a public-recognition program the Division I Board of Directors approved in January 2006. Last year, a total of 839 teams were recognized.
For the second consecutive year, Yale University had the most teams (28) recognized. By conference, the Ivy Group had by far 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). The men's sport 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.
Last year, a total of 839 teams were recognized. There are fewer awards this year than last year because there are fewer teams with perfect scores. The number of teams in some sports may exceed 10 percent depending on how many achieved perfect 1,000 APR scores. In some sports, teams had to maintain a perfect score over the four-year period in order to be recognized.