By Marcela Berrios, Hannah Storm Journalism Intern
Notre Dame tops the list of schools with the highest percentage of student-athletes that graduate within six year, according to the NCAA’s 2007 analysis of graduation rates. The NCAA figures, released Oct. 3, track the graduation success rate (GSR) -- the percentage of student athletes that graduate from the school within six years of enrollment -- at 318 Division I colleges and universities across the country.
Eighteen of the University’s 22 athletic programs received a GSR score of 100 percent, which led the NCAA to give Notre Dame an overall score of 98 percent for all student-athletes. Notre Dame shares the top spot with Northwestern University and the U.S. Naval Academy.
Notre Dame received a perfect GSR score in all of its women’s sports: basketball, fencing, golf, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field and volleyball. This is a slight improvement from last year, when soccer received a 94 percent GSR score, making it the only women’s sport without a perfect mark.
Seven men’s sports (baseball, fencing, hockey, soccer, swimming, tennis, and track field) received perfect scores. And while the basketball, football, golf and lacrosse programs failed to receive 100 percent GSR scores, none received a grade below 90. They received scores of 91, 93, 91 and 97, respectively, putting ND in second place among male student-athletes (behind the U.S. Naval Academy).
Though the football program saw its 2007 GSR drop from 95 percent in 2006, its current score is still the third highest one in the study (behind the U.S. Naval Academy’s 95 percent and Northwestern’s 94).
Notre Dame reclaimed this year the highest percentage of perfect GSR scores in the NCAA’s study (81.8 percent of the University’s athletic programs received 100 percent scores), a title that belonged to the U.S. Naval Academy in 2006 and to Notre Dame in 2005, when 16 of its 20 athletic programs earned top marks.
