Villanova has 11 varsity sports programs that achieve a perfect APR score of 1000 in the latest academic data

INDIANAPOLIS—Villanova Athletics continues to shine among the top collegiate athletics programs in the country for the combination of academic and athletic achievement among its student-athletes. New data measuring academic progress rate was released Tuesday afternoon by the NCAA, and Villanova achieved a perfect 1000 multi-year score for 11 of its varsity athletic programs. This is the fifth consecutive year that data has been collected that the Wildcats have had 10 or more teams score 1000s.

The 11 sports programs to achieve a perfect 1000 score are in Tuesday’s announcement baseball, Men’s Basketball, golf, Swimming & Diving for men, Cross-country skiing for women, rowing, soft ball, women soccer, women’s tennis, Athletics for women and water polo. Seven of the 11 teams have achieved a score of 1000 for at least five consecutive years, led by women’s tennis for nine consecutive years with a score of 1000 and the golf and water polo programs, which have achieved a score of 1000 for eight consecutive years. Golf has achieved a perfect score of 1000 12 times and in the past academic year (2021-22) he led all of Villanova’s varsity sports with the highest team GPA for both the fall and spring semesters.

This is the 16th year that Academic Progression Rate (APR) data has been collected for Division I schools. The metric provides a real-time measurement of an athletic program’s academic performance based on points earned by student-athletes each semester for their academic rank and maintenance. A grade of 1000 represents a perfect score. Tuesday’s release is the first in two years after a hiatus in 2020-21, and the announcement includes data for the youngest cohort of student-athletes to enter college from 2017-18 to 2020-21. Certain elements of the APR program, including public recognition for top-performing teams, will remain suspended until Spring 2023.

Four of the 11 sports programs with a multi-year APR score of 1000 in Tuesday’s release advanced to the 2021-22 national postseason competition, including the men’s basketball and softball teams competing in their respective NCAA tournaments and the cross-country Team of women who earn a team spot the NCAA championships. In addition, members of the women’s track and field team qualified for the NCAA championships in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. There were three teams that combined a 1000 APR score with at least one All-American in the past year. These sports were men’s basketball (Collin Gillespie), women’s track and field (McKenna Keegan, Sanaä Barnes) and water polo (Kaysie Stuba).

Villanova’s excellence in the APR program stands out in comparison to other BIG EAST programs and Division I schools across the country. Each of the Wildcats varsity programs reported a multi-year APR that is above the national average for its sport. Villanova ran all BIG EAST schools with a number of teams scoring a multi-year 1000 and was one of only 14 schools across the country to have 11 or more teams scoring 1000.

The baseball and men’s basketball teams were each the only BIG EAST schools to have a multi-year score of 1000 in their sport. Villanova has particularly excelled in the top-flight sports of men’s basketball, women’s basketball and soccer. There have only been five men’s basketball teams that have played in the NCAA tournament that have scored 1000 APR. The women’s basketball team ranked third among the BIG EAST programs with a score of 995, and the Wildcats CAA football team finished fourth in the conference with a score of 976, well above the national average of 959 for FCS programs lies.

Villanova Athletics continues to achieve widespread academic success. During the Spring 2022 semester, each of the Wildcats’ 24 varsity athletic programs achieved a team GPA greater than 3.0. The overall GPA for nearly 550 student-athletes during the spring semester was 3.425, marking 38 consecutive semesters above 3.0 and 15 consecutive grading periods in which student-athlete GPA was above 3.2. In Spring 2022, there were 12 sports with a GPA of 3.5 or higher, while 48 student-athletes representing 23 different teams achieved a 4.0 GPA for the semester.

During the summer months there will be BIG EAST announcements of the year Team Academic Excellence Awards, Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Awards and the 2021-22 BIG EAST All-Academic Team. Similar purely academic publications are forthcoming from CAA Football, the Colonial Athletic Association (rowing) and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (water polo).