Iowa State University Athletics
ISU Registers Tenth-Straight School Record GSR Score
11.20.2024 | Athletics
AMES, Iowa – For the 10th-straight year, Iowa State University student-athletes have established a school-record Graduation Success Rate (GSR) score, as its 95 percent institutional GSR equaled the school-record of the last two years, according to the 2024 NCAA Division I academic performance metrics released today by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
"We are incredibly proud of our student-athletes for their continued commitment to academic excellence, and the latest GSR scores demonstrate their hard work, effort and resolve to earn a degree from Iowa State University," ISU Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard said. "Despite the ever-changing landscape within intercollegiate athletics, our coaches and academic services staff have established well-defined culture that allows our student-athletes to reach their full potential, academically, athletically and individually over the course of their Cyclone journey.
"We are also grateful for the role that Iowa State's faculty and staff continue to play in providing an academic environment that allows our student-athletes to excel in," he added. "Graduation remains the expectation for all Cyclone student-athletes, and this report demonstrates our ongoing commitment to helping them achieve that important milestone in their lives."
ISU's institutional GSR has improved each of the last 10 years, from 77 percent in 2014 to its 95 percent mark the past three years, while equaling or establishing a school-record every year during that span. Iowa State's 2024 mark also came in five points higher than both the most-recent NCAA FBS and Big 12 averages and marked the sixth-straight year it surpassed 90 percent.
The Cyclones' institutional 95 percent 2024 GSR score ranked second in the Big 12 Conference behind Cincinnati's 96 percent score, and was followed by Baylor (94), UCF (94), West Virginia (94), Kansas State (92), Oklahoma State (91), Kansas (90), Texas (89), Oklahoma (87), TCU (86), Texas Tech (84), Houston (82) and BYU (79). For the purposes of the 2024 GSR report, the NCAA based conference affiliation upon the league that institutions were members of during the 2023-24 academic year.
Iowa State's 92 percent GSR for its male student-athletes was a school record, ranked second in the Big 12 and improved for the 10th-straight year, while its female student-athlete GSR of 98 percent tied for third in the conference, matched the second-highest score in department history and was the 19th-straight year it topped 90 percent. Â
Eight Cyclone programs led the Big 12 Conference with perfect four-year GSR scores of 100 percent—men's golf, women's basketball, women's golf, gymnastics, softball, women's swimming & diving, women's tennis and women's track & field/cross country. ISU women's golf program recorded a perfect GSR for the 20th-consecutive year, while gymnastics had its 16th-straght 100 percent performance, softball its ninth-straight such effort and men's golf its seventh-straight year of perfection. The Cyclones' women's swimming and diving and gymnastics teams both had 100 percent GSR scores for the fifth-consecutive year, while women's tennis produced a perfect score for the fourth-straight year.
ISU football produced a program-record GSR of 95 percent to rank second in the Big 12, while men's basketball (88 percent) tied for fourth, followed by wrestling (86 percent, fourth), men's track & field/cross country (88 percent, fifth), women's soccer (96 percent, tied for eighth) and volleyball (88 percent, 13th).
In the annual student-athlete Federal Graduation Rates survey which was also released alongside the NCAA's GSR metrics, Iowa State's single-year rate of 74 percent was second in the Big 12 Conference, while its four-year 68 percent rate ranked tied for the league's fifth-highest mark.
The GSR was developed by the NCAA with the entering freshmen class of 1995 to more accurately assess student-athlete's academic performance. The rate holds institutions accountable for transfer students, unlike the fed survey. The GSR also accounts for mid-year enrollees and is calculated for every sport. Under the calculation, institutions are not penalized for outgoing students who leave in good academic standing. The outgoing transfers are included in the receiving institution's GSR cohort. The most-recent Division I Graduation Success Rates are based on the four entering classes from 2014-17.
