The NCAA on Tuesday announced Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and Federal Graduation Rate for the 2010-11 to 2013-14 freshman cohorts for all Division I institutions as part of the annual NCAA Division I Academic Performance Program.

This year’s Tennessee-specific data revealed an overall multi-year GSR of 90 percent—the highest in UT history. It marked the eighth straight year of improvement in Tennessee’s multi-year score.

Eleven of UT’s 16 programs tied or broke their GSR records, with seven sports posting a 100 percent GSR.

The teams with perfect multi-year GSRs are women’s golf, rowing, softball, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, women’s track & field and volleyball.

Baseball (90 percent), football (83 percent), men’s golf (89 percent) and women’s swimming (96 percent) each earned program-record GSRs.

Tennessee’s single-year (2013 cohort) GSR of 95 percent also was its all-time best, as a dozen teams posted a single-year GSR of 100 percent. Also noteworthy in UT’s single-year GSR data is the football program’s score of 94 percent, which is its highest since the data has been tracked.

“You won’t see many headlines about our Graduation Success Rate numbers, but it’s a vitally important metric,” Tennessee Director of Athletics Phillip Fulmer said. “Our GSR scores have improved for eight straight years now, and that’s a credit to the dedication of our student-athletes and the support systems we have in place to ensure their academic success. As always, I’m appreciative of the great work being done at the Thornton Center, and I also want to acknowledge our coaching staffs for their efforts to prioritize academics and progress toward degrees.”

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 that choose to leave and are academically eligible according to NCAA Progress-Toward-Degree-Requirements.

One of Tennessee Athletics’ key objectives is to graduate student-athletes and prepare them for real-world experiences. 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.

Sport-Specific Highlights (Multi-Year GSR)

• Football earned its all-time best GSR at 83 percent—a nine-point improvement over last year’s then-record score
• Volleyball earned a perfect 100 for the 14th consecutive year.
• Rowing earned a perfect 100 for the seventh consecutive year.
• Men’s tennis earned a perfect 100 for the sixth consecutive year.
• Women’s golf earned a perfect 100 for the fifth consecutive year.
• Women’s tennis earned a perfect 100 for the fifth consecutive year.

-UT Athletics