The Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence is awarded to Division II schools that have achieved an Academic Success Rate of 90% or higher. For the second consecutive year, 44 member schools have earned this honor.
Bentley and Saint Michael's were the top performers, earning an ASR of 99%. Biola, D'Youville, Hillsdale and Thomas Jefferson University rounded out the top six, each earning an ASR of 98%.
The Northeast-10 Conference led the division with seven athletics programs achieving scores of 90% or more, followed by the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference and Sunshine State Conference with five programs each.
"Congratulations to the 44 schools who have earned this prestigious award," said Steven Shirley, president of Minot State and chair of the Division II Presidents Council. "It takes a collective effort from the student-athletes, coaches, university and athletic administrators to earn an Academic Success Rate of 90% or higher, and I'm very excited to recognize these schools."
The Division II ASR includes transfers into a school in the calculation and removes those who transferred out of the school while academically eligible. The ASR also includes over 30,000 nonscholarship student-athletes who were enrolled in the four years covered in the most recent data.
Even when using the less-inclusive federal graduation rate, student-athletes are outperforming their peers in the general student population by 7%. For Division II student-athletes, the federal rate is 60%, while the general student body federal rate is 53%.
This is the 13th year the award has been given. Eight schools have earned the award every year: Assumption, Bentley, Eckerd, Hillsdale, Rockhurst, Rollins, Saint Michael's and Seattle Pacific.
