Grad rates released

By Seth Brown     12/3/09 6:00pm

Football and basketball may not have defeated either Houston or Texas over the weekend, but Rice athletics gained a victory of its own with the release of the most recent student-athlete graduation rates. According to statistics released two weeks ago by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Rice ranks seventh in the nation among NCAA Division I-A schools in student-athlete graduation rates as listed by the four-year federal rate, at 79 percent, the same as last year. Rice is also ranked eighth according to the graduation success rate, at 93 percent, a 1 percent improvement over last year.

The federal rate for athletes depends on the graduation rates of those who entered in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 as freshmen with athletic scholarships, while the graduation success rate factors in those who come in midyear and those who transfer in on athletic scholarships, and does not account for those who transfer away in good standing.

Rice's student body as a whole ranks sixth in the nation with a 92 percent graduation rate according to the federal rate, which uses the same methodology as the athletic federal rate applied across all students.

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Associate Director for Academic Advising for Athletics Julie Griswold said the figures for athletes should improve next year, as those who entered in 1999 had an unusually low graduation rate of 69 percent.

Griswold said Rice, historically, has generally ranked fifth or sixth for its student-athlete graduation rates.

"Student-athletes work really hard, and coaches do really well recruiting and recruit those who want to do well in every endeavor," Griswold said.

The football program, which is allotted the most athletic scholarships, placed eighth in the federal rate, with 73 percent, and 12th in the graduation success rate, with 84 percent.

"Graduation and winning championships go hand in hand," Head Coach David Bailiff said. "Football is the greatest game around, but academics come first, even if it means missing practice."

Bailiff said the football team includes 11 engineers, four or five students who intend to go to medical school and 10 who intend to go to law school. In order to be successful in their post-graduate lives, these students need to maintain high GPAs.

"Education is for life," Bailiff said. "That's why you go to school."

The baseball team, whose graduation success rate is 100 percent and tied for first in the nation, has a much lower federal rate, which at 37 percent places it 64th in the nation. Baseball Head Coach Wayne Graham said the relatively low federal rate was a result of major league teams drafting college players while they are still juniors if they are not taken straight out of high school.

"The better you are, it hurts your graduation rate," Graham said. "But the guys we send out are citizens."

Juniors can get hundreds of thousands of dollars in signing bonuses, and although a number come back to finish their degrees after playing professionally, the structure of the system is such that graduating with their class is impossible, Graham said.

"I would love it if they could not sign until the end of their fourth year, but I can't do anything about the structure," Graham said.

Members of the women's tennis team, which had a 100 percent graduation success rate, tying them for first in the nation, and a 71 percent federal rate, placing them 50th, do not face a similar choice between either signing with a team or staying and finishing their degree on time.

Head Coach Elizabeth Schmidt said that although a few players go pro during or after college, many only play in a few professional tournaments to try it out.

"Our players want to be the best they can be, but they also know that once they leave Rice, they're entering the non-athletic world pretty quickly," Schmidt said.

Schmidt said that alongside athletic talent, she considers academic ability when she recruits.

"We don't want to bring someone into Rice who is going to feel out of their league," she said. "If they aren't doing well in the classroom it could affect how they do on the tennis court.

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