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March 3, 2005

Pitt Gets NCAA “Report Card”

Three of Pitt’s 19 athletics teams fell below the minimum standard of a new academic performance rate (APR) established in January by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). But none of the three would have faced penalties because their APR scores fell within the NCAA’s “confidence boundary,” a statistically driven margin of error range established to account for teams with relatively few scholarship players.

Full-time student-athletes on scholarship at all 326 NCAA Division I schools, including Pitt, now need to meet a minimum “cut-off” score of 925 based a formula that measures retention of eligibility and graduation success rate or risk losing scholarships, according to Donna Sanft, associate athletics director for student life and compliance.

The 925 cut-off score is derived from a review of 2003-2004 data submitted by each school, and roughly corresponds to an expected graduation rate of 50 percent of a team’s scholarship athletes during a six-year window, according to the NCAA. Individual teams falling below the 925 APR can lose up to 10 percent of their maximum allowable scholarships.

Although sanctions will not be imposed until after fall 2005 data are evaluated, the NCAA sent preliminary “report cards” to all schools to show where their teams currently stand in relation to the new rules.

Overall, Pitt’s APR is 951, exceeding the 948 national average of all Division I schools. Nearly 1,200 teams out of the 5,721 teams in all Division I sports had an average below a 925 APR, according the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The three Pitt teams that fell below the NCAA cut-off score of 925 – men’s soccer (score 919), wrestling (917) and men’s basketball (885) – all fell within the confidence boundary, according to information passed to Pitt from the NCAA, Sanft told the University Times.

Nonetheless, those teams are being required by Pitt athletics director Jeff Long to submit written plans that address a team’s deficiencies, Sanft said. “Our goal is that every team in our program will meet or exceed the NCAA cut score, and our ultimate goal is that all our student-athletes will graduate,” Sanft said. “But Jeff [Long] mandated, even before we got this report, that coaches and advisers and support staff for any sport below the 925 APR, or within 10 points above the 925, will be required to develop an aggressive academic action plan.”

Such plans likely would vary by sport, she said, but could include lengthening mandatory study time or increasing one-on-one advising, among other steps.

-Peter Hart


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