The University of Tennessee announced academic progress rates (APR) for its athletics teams on Wednesday, including three programs that received APR Public Recognition Awards for posting a multi-year APR score in the top 10 percent in their sports nationally: Women’s Basketball, Women’s Golf, and Women’s Tennis. The golf and tennis programs earned this distinction for the third consecutive year, while basketball received the honor for the second consecutive year.

The Academic Progress Rate, now in its eighth year, measures the eligibility and retention of scholarship student-athletes competing on every Division I sports team. It also serves as a predictor of graduation success. The most recent APR scores are based on a multi-year rate that averages scores from the 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10, and 2010-11 academic years.

The APR is based on each student-athlete, having the opportunity to earn two points during each regular academic term of full-time enrollment (e.g., fall semester). One point is awarded if the student-athlete is academically eligible to compete the following regular academic term (or has graduated). The other point is awarded if the student-athlete returns to the institution as a full-time student the next regular academic term or graduates from the university. The APR is calculated by adding all points earned by student-athletes over the past four academic years and dividing that number by the total possible points that could have been earned. That number is then multiplied by 1,000.

When a team’s academic performance, measured by that team’s multi-year APR, falls below 925, that team becomes subject to penalties if any student-athlete on that team did not return to the institution as a full-time student and was not academically eligible when the student-athlete left the institution. This penalty is known as a contemporaneous penalty and potentially limits the amount of athletics aid that the team may award.

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