Second year of data released in national study of athletics, academics

College Sports Project reports new findings about

athletics and academics in NCAA Division III

The College Sports Project (CSP), an initiative of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has released the second in a series of reports comparing academic performance between college athletes and non-athletes. For the student cohort entering college in 2006-2007, differences in college class rank between female athletes and non-athletes were relatively modest again this year. However, male athletes had class ranks 9 percentile points lower at the end of their first year of college when compared with their non-athlete counterparts. Recruited male athletes also had class ranks 6 percentile points lower than non-recruited male athletes.

For students now at the end of their first two years of college, the differences in average class rank between athletes and non-athletes shrank by one percentile point since their first year (2005-2006), possibly indicating that athletes gradually make positive adjustments to the demands of academic life. Women athletes in both cohorts fared better than their male counterparts, and non-recruited athletes of both genders had GPAs only slightly below those of non-athletes.

Percentile Class Rank GPA after Two Years: 2005-06 Entering Cohort