EASTON, Pa. - Lafayette's athletic programs stood out among the nation's best on Wednesday afternoon in the NCAA's Division I annual Graduation Success Rate (GSR) release.
Lafayette claimed a 98 percent GSR overall for the second straight year based on the 19 sports measured while 17 Leopard teams achieved a graduation success rate of 100 percent.
Among the national rankings, Harvard, Villanova, Yale, Bucknell and Columbia managed a GSR score of 99. Seventeen schools, including the likes of Notre Dame Holy Cross, Princeton, Cornell, Davidson and Duke, equaled Lafayette's score of 98.
As a conference, the Patriot League stood at 94. Institutionally, Bucknell (99) paced the pack, followed by Lafayette (98), Holy Cross (98), Colgate (97), Lehigh (97), American (95), Boston (95), Loyola (95), Navy (94) and Army (91).
The NCAA's GSR includes transfer students and student-athletes who leave in good academic standing, unlike the federal graduation rate, which does not count transfers. The GSR and federal rate calculations measure graduation over six years from when a student-athlete first enrolls.
Lafayette's 17 programs which received perfect GSR scores were baseball, men's and women's basketball, women's cross country and track and field, fencing, field hockey, men's golf, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's swimming and diving, softball, men's and women's tennis and volleyball.
In addition to those programs with perfect GSR scores, the Leopard football program had the fifth best score (95) in the country. Lafayette joined schools from the Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, Colonial Athletic Association, Big Ten and the Ivy League in the top 10.
The federal graduation rate provides the only measure of historic academic comparison between student-athletes and the general student body. By this standard, student-athletes consistently outperform nearly all their peers in the student body. Lafayette student-athletes have a federal graduation rate of 84 percent (a four-class average), compared to the NCAA Division I student-athlete rate of 69 percent.
