43 DII schools earn Presidents’ Award for Academic Excellence

The Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence is awarded to Division II schools that have achieved an Academic Success Rate of 90% or higher. This year, 43 member schools earned this honor. 

Bentley and Saint Michael's were the top performers, earning an ASR of 99%. Biola, Hillsdale and Thomas Jefferson University rounded out the top five with 98%. 

The Northeast-10 Conference led the division with eight athletics programs achieving scores of 90% or more, followed by the Great Lakes Valley Conference with five programs. 

"It is an honor recognizing 43 schools for this prestigious award," said Steven Shirley, president of Minot State and chair of the Division II Presidents Council. "I applaud these schools and student-athletes for their hard work, commitment and dedication to achieving academic excellence." 

The Division II ASR includes transfers into a school in the calculation and removes transfers out who left school while academically eligible. The ASR also includes the more than 31,000 nonscholarship student-athletes who were enrolled in the four years covered in the most recent data.

Even when using the less-inclusive federal graduation rates, student-athletes are outperforming their peers in the general student population by 8%. For Division II athletes, the federal rate increased 1 percentage point to 60%, and the general student body increased 1 point to 52%.

This is the 11th year the award has been given. Ten schools have earned the award every year: Assumption, Bentley, Eckerd, Hillsdale, Rockhurst, Rollins, Saint Michael's, Seattle Pacific, Stonehill and University of the Sciences.

The schools receiving the 2021 Presidents' Award are: