Courtesy: NCAA

KALAMAZOO, Mich. - Three Western Michigan University athletic teams are among Division I teams nationwide being honored by the NCAA for posting Academic Progress Rates in the top 10 percent for their respective sports.  WMU men’s basketball, men’s soccer and softball are all recognized in Wednesday’s announcement from the NCAA.

The NCAA is honoring more than 800 Division I sports teams with public recognition awards for their latest Academic Progress Rate scores. These teams posted multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports.  

These awards are given each year to teams scoring in the top 10 percent in each sport with their APRs. The APR provides a real-time look at a team’s academic success each semester or quarter 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.  

Across the three sports recognized by the NCAA, Western Michigan boasts 35 student-athletes carrying at least a 3.0 GPA, six with a 3.5 GPA or higher and one student-athlete carrying a 4.0 GPA.  That number (35) equates to 64.8 percent of the student-athletes currently competing in those three athletic programs at Western Michigan.

In comparison with the rest of the Mid-American Conference, WMU was one of three programs to have three teams make the list with Buffalo and Toledo also having three teams on the list.

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 public recognition awards this year posted APR scores ranging from 976 to a perfect 1,000, said NCAA President Myles Brand.

Multi-year APR scores for all 6,110 Division I sports teams, including the teams receiving public recognition awards, will be announced later this spring.