For Eighth Straight Year, Tennessee Earns Highest-Ever Multi-Year GSR Score

The NCAA this week announced Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and Federal Graduation Rate data for the 2012-13 to 2015-16 freshman cohorts for all Division I institutions as part of the annual NCAA Division I Academic Performance Program.

For the eighth consecutive year, Tennessee’s student-athletes earned the school’s highest-ever multi-year GSR, at 93 percent. And it marked the 10th straight year that UT’s multi-year GSR improved.

Tennessee’s female student-athletes’ collective multi-year GSR of 98 percent was the highest in Lady Vols history, while UT’s male student-athletes tied their highest-ever multi-year GSR, at 87 percent.

In sport-specific data, 10 different programs set or tied their highest-ever multi-year GSR. Ten sports also posted a perfect multi-year GSR of 100 percent—baseball, women’s basketball, men’s golf, women’s golf, rowing, softball, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, women’s track & field/cross country and volleyball.

Tennessee’s single-year (2015 cohort) GSR of 93 percent was the third-best in school history, as 13 sports posted a single-year GSR of 100 percent. Also noteworthy in UT’s single-year GSR data was the collective female student-athlete score of 100 percent—their first-ever perfect single-year score.

“During a time in which so many of our Vols and Lady Vols are competing at a championship caliber, this latest GSR data proves that the academic mission continues to be accomplished at an extremely high level here at Tennessee—we compete in the classroom, too,” Vice Chancellor/Director of Athletics Danny White said. “I applaud and appreciate the outstanding academic resources and support our students have access to across our entire campus—and especially in the Thornton Center. And most of all, I commend our student-athletes for their academic diligence and commitment to lead the way forward in all aspects of college sports.”

The GSR is calculated differently than the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR). The GSR allows institutions to add scholarship transfers that fit into their respective freshman cohorts and remove those students who choose to leave and are academically eligible according to NCAA Progress-Toward-Degree-Requirements.

In 2001, the University of Tennessee opened the Thornton Athletics Student Life Center to provide student-athletes with superior academic support programs and personal and career development assistance.

This past summer, Tennessee Athletics published Rise Glorious, an ambitious…