Georgia Tech has continued its improvement with its NCAA-measured Graduation Success Rate, recording a school-record rate for the third consecutive year.
Tech’s football team likewise posted a record score for the third year in a row, graduating 72 percent of its scholarship athletes who enrolled between the 2005-06 and 2008-09 academic years. Tech’s overall 84 percent GSR score, while having improved from 76 percent in the 2012 report, ranks 12th in the 15-team ACC. The football team’s score is 11th in the conference.
Three Tech teams – golf, women’s tennis and volleyball – received perfect 100 scores. Of Tech’s 13 teams, 11 either improved or stayed the same, including a 12-point jump for the baseball team from 83 to 95 percent. Both swimming teams had a slight retreat, from 100 to 95 percent.
The improvements made under football coach Paul Johnson and men’s basketball coach Brian Gregory are considerable. In the 2012 report, which covered the four classes entering between 2002-03 and 2005-06, the football team’s GSR and 55 and the basketball team’s was 18, both last or tied for last in the ACC. Both scores have improved each year as the time span covered has included more athletes eligible during Johnson and Gregory’s tenures.
The basketball score is 50, last in the ACC, but is expected to significantly improve in coming years. Every player who has reached his senior season with Gregory has graduated.
“We have high standards for our student-athletes as they strive to achieve academic and athletic excellence,” Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski said in a statement. “We are very pleased with the continued positive trend highlighted in our most recent GSR results. I am proud of the effort, commitment and persistence demonstrated each day by our student-athletes and the dedication of our coaches, staff, and academic support team to help them succeed in the classroom.”
GSR measures the graduation rates of scholarship athletes, including those transferring in. Schools do not have to count athletes who leave prior to graduation if they left in good academic standing.
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