ROCHESTER, NY – For the first time since moving to the Division I level, the RIT women’s hockey team has been honored by the NCAA for its excellent Academic Progress Rate (APR), as it received a Public Recognition Award on Thursday, May 21.
The Tigers are one of just seven Division I women’s hockey programs to earn this prestigious honor, joining Ivy League schools Brown and Harvard, plus fellow Liberty League and ECAC foes Rensselaer and Union, Boston College and fellow College Hockey America member Penn State.
The APR is an annual scorecard of academic achievement calculated for all D-I sports teams nationally. In order to receive a Public Recognition Award, a program must be ranked in the top 10 percent of its sport, which means its APR score ranged from 980 to a perfect 1,000.
“We congratulate each of the teams and individual student-athletes for their dedication to academic success,” said NCAA president Mark Emmert. “This achievement demonstrates their hard work and the commitment of NCAA member schools to provide students with an opportunity to succeed academically and athletically.”
The APR measures eligibility, graduation and retention each semester or quarter and provides a clear picture of the academic performance for each team in each sport. The most recent APRs are multi-year rates based on scores from 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years.
The women’s hockey team placed 11 players on the College Hockey America All-Academic Team in 2012-13 and 13 in 2013-14. RIT is poised to top that number this season.
The Tigers made history in 2014-15 by winning their second consecutive College Hockey America Championship, and advancing to the NCAA Tournament for the first time as a Division I program since moving up in 2012. Visit www.ritathletics.com for more women’s hockey information, including the 2015-16 schedule release, ticket information for year two at the Gene Polisseni Center, and more coming soon.
