Graduation Rates

JJacket

JJacket

Gettysburg. Wow.
Joined
May 20, 2003
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Didn't see this posted, but this is something that worries me. The NCAA is getting ready to cut scholarships based on graduation rates (as I read it). Should consideration be taken into account what type of education a school is providing?

Most agree that GT is one of the tougher schools in the nation to graduate from - 69% of the regular student body achieves graduation in 6 years. Should this be considered when judging athletes graduation rates? Should our athletes be expected to graduate at a much higher rate than the normal student body to appease the NCAA? Will Tech have to be "dumbed down" to assure an acceptable graduation rate?


Perhaps this is why we are so careful in selecting SA's nowdays.


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Thursday's figures, while potentially embarrassing to some schools, resulted in no penalties. That won't be the case six weeks from now when the NCAA releases academic progress rates and cuts scholarships for teams that underachieve in the classroom.


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AJC Article
 
Actually they do take the student body grad rate into consideration in the formula they use. I don't know exactly how it works, but it's part of the process. This is a very cursory article and I don't think reflects what the new standards say at all.
 
I remember seeing the graduation rate standings from 1 years ago and GT was in good shape. I believe only the baseball team was slightly under the minimal acceptable NCAA level (of all the GT sports teams).

NC State, Miss St., Arkansas were in trouble. Their entire athletic programs were below the acceptable line...
 
Grad rates are different than APR.

There are 3 calculations in the grad rates report:

1. Six-year rates - All athletes who entered in 1998-99 and whether they've graduated after six years (our football class for this time period was at 20%)

2. Exhausted eligibility rates - All athletes who exhausted all 4 years of athletic eligibility at GT (reflects those who entered in 95-96 whose eligibility would have been up in 98-99)

3. Graduation success rate - For the first time, a measure which includes transfers OUT in good standing and transfers IN who graduate from GT (our overall GSR for the same time period in #2 above was 67%).

APR, on the other hand, measures CURRENT student athletes' progress toward degree. It is calculated by sport on a scale of 1 to 1,000 and is based on whether athletes stay enrolled and make adequate progress toward their degrees. Beginning soon, teams with scores below 925 (in red type) will lose scholarships when their athletes flunk out.

They are still tweaking APR rules for baseball because of the long-standing practice of athletes leaving for the pros after 3 years, but otherwise, it's here to stay. So the answer to your question about why we might be living under even more stringent academic guidelines is "You bet it has to do with APR."

Hope this helps.
 
I'm not so worried. Chan has proven that he will always recruit one or more less than we are allowed whatever the number is. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/pat.gif
 
Wow...I didn't realize the graduation rate for the student body as a whole we that low. Wonder if the ones who don't graduate just can't cut it, or decide early in their college career to transfer to a school that offers another degree program? Of course, we'll never know the answer to that, because there's probably no way to track it.
 
Actually I'm surprised the grad rate for the student body is that high? I'm pretty sure that's an improvement over what it was in the 70s.

Although I've always wondered how they count kids who flunk out more than once? I had a friend who went through the warning, probation, flunk out, readmission, warning, etc..deal 3 times. I have no idea what he was thinking. But how do you count that I wonder?
 
This is undoubtedly why so many grads are as proud of their Tech degree as they are, and why so many are against adding anything that would potentially soften up the obstacle course.

I think this attitude is most prevalent with the young alumni that still have nasty open exit wounds.
As some grads grow older, this attitude softens a bit to the point where we want Tech to be demanding but still be able to compete for championships.
 
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I had a friend who went through the warning, probation, flunk out, readmission, warning, etc..deal 3 times. I have no idea what he was thinking.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do I know you?
 
I never did understand the mentality among profs that they almost had to flunk someone. My son is in engineering at NCState and the approach they take is quite different. They believe that they've only accepted kids who can do the work, so they concentrate on helping them do it. They don't hand out grades but they aren't insane about running people off either. As a result of the attitudes of profs, he's enjoying school and working harder at it than I think he would have out of fear.
 
That's a good question. I graduated from high school, and started at Tech, with someone who did the same thing. After a year and a half, and failing out 3 times, he quit trying. As an added note, he never did get a college degree, but hit it big in high-tech, and is worth something like $50 million last time I heard.
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I had a friend who went through the warning, probation, flunk out, readmission, warning, etc..deal 3 times. I have no idea what he was thinking.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do I know you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Now this sounds like a fun, stress free college experience! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/drink1.gif
 
Last I knew the guy I'm thinking of lived in Mississippi. But I did know a bunch of guys from Augusta.
 
Re: Grad rates are different than APR.

To the original point of the thread, at the risk of being called out by someone, improving our scores is a simple thing. If you look into the detail (no value judgements, simply stating facts), white athletes have better scores than black, and women do better than men. We simply don't have enough sports at Tech. Our athletic department is predominantly male and black because of the sports we compete in.

From my local paper.GSR averages are 69% for men 86% for women, 82% for whites, 59% for blacks and 68% for Hispanics. Again I'm not making any value judgement or talking about why any of this might be. I'm simply saying that once again Tech faces an uphill battle due to the uniqueness of the school. We need to add soccer and lacrosse for women and men's lacrosse if we want to get our scores up. Increase the number of women athletes and the number of (mostly) white male athletes who are using school to get an education rather than to the pros.
 
During my father's orientation at GT in 1955, they sat everyone in a room and said, "Take a good look at the person on the right of you and the left of you, because neither will be there when you graduate".

When I was at GT in the mid to late 1980's I think about half the students that started never graduated.

When student retention became part of the school ranking formula, GT has had to rethink it's weeding out strategy.

When I went through the Emory MBA program (in the 1990's)the retention rate was something like 95%. It's hard to get in and easy to graduate. I thought it was common knowledge that Harvard, Princeton, Yale, duke, WF, UVA, UNC are the same. It's almost impossible not to graduate once your in. That's why these grad rates for athletes, while full of good intentions, are not a true picture of the real world at some of these schools.

It's better than nothing, though. I believe it will help GT over the long run (in terms of forcing all high school sA's to better prep themselves academically if they want to play college ball).
 
Can someone confirm if the graduation rate is normalized for the schools OVERALL graduation rate? If not, we need to make a major stink with the NCAA and try to add a jock major.

For example, if Tech football grad rate is 60% and overall grad rate is 70%, then the overall RATIO is 86%. If UGAg football grad rate is 70% and overall student grad rate is 90% then their football RATIO is 78% and they should be the ones facing scholarship loss, not Tech. If its purely based on %graduating with no normalization of data to the population, then that is damn stupid. We need to mount a PR campaign if this is the case. Hell the NCAA could afford to hire at least one statistician and figure this out.
 
What are people going to say when SA grad rates are higher than the non SA rates.
I'm not saying this cheating will happen at Tech.
 
i seriously doubt that NEW ncaa rules

regarding progress towards graduation have much bearing on freshmen classes that enrolled from 1995-1998.

Just consider how out of date the content for that article is? Both Tech and Ugag have both been raked over the coals for those numbers in past articles.

Think of who was coaching the 2 schools in that article in 1995
 
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