Among agenda items for the Committee on Academic Performance was to review the finalized Academic Progress Rate (APR) data from 2003-04. Institutions had submitted data earlier this year but were given through March to correct any reporting errors. For example, several institutions did not submit separate APR scores in cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field, even though they sponsored all three sports.

In the final analysis, the total number of teams for which APRs were submitted rose to 6,002 from the approximately 5,700 collected in February. Of those, 6 percent (363 teams) fell below the 925 APR cut-off for contemporaneous penalties (as opposed to slightly more than 7 percent in the first data collection). That figure includes the squad-size adjustment applied for teams with small data samples. Ten percent of all men's teams fell below the cutpoint and 2.6 of women's teams fell below the line.

Just over 84 percent of the teams reported no changes in APR scores scores during the allotted editing period. About 11 percent reported increased APR outcomes, while about 4 percent actually decreased. Of the 651 teams with increases in their reported APRs, 69 were in football, 61 in baseball and 45 in men's basketball.

NCAA researchers said most of the reported changes were in eligibility calculations, though it was inconclusive as to how those changes were reached. In at least one instance, a school reported that some student-athletes who had been ineligible because of incompletes in various courses made up their coursework at a later date. The CAP reviewed that issue and ruled that in the future, institutions will have up to the time for amending APR data to consider incomplete grades. After that point, the data are final and no more changes to eligibility can be made.

Some CAP members speculated that the changes in data were due simply to the increasing realization on the part of institutional personnel that the academic-reform structure was in fact a reality, and an initiative that required an increased focus on student-athlete academic outcomes. Researchers also noted that some schools may have submitted data conservatively at first, erring on the side of ineligibility in cases where there was the slightest doubt.

"Given the complexities of the academic-reform structure that has been adopted over the past two years, we expected institutions to have some difficulty understanding all the nuances in the new data-collection process," said CAP Chair Walter Harrison, president at the University of Hartford. "That was one of the reasons we decided not to tie contemporaneous penalties to this first year of data. We do expect, however, as schools become more familiar with the process, that we'll get cleaner data in subsequent reporting periods."

Some institutions criticized the initial release of APR data in February, but researchers pointed out that mistakes in the data were not known until they were published. The process pointed out an apparent disconnect on many campuses in which not enough corroboration occurred among the personnel required to submit accurate reports. Institutions, in fact, had several months to file and amend data before the reports were released, but researchers heard anecdotal evidence that many administrators were not given a chance to review the data before they were submitted to the NCAA. In some cases, the first time key administrators saw the data was at the time of public release. In the end, many believe the first-year data release actually highlighted the need for a better campus communication in the future.

In the future, Harrison said, the NCAA staff will develop a revised data-submission process that may even incorporate requests for waivers along with initial submission of data. That would help ensure a more accurate report once the final APR scores are made public.

-- Gary T. Brown