UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Eighty-two Penn State student-athletes from the Nittany Lions’ winter programs have earned Academic All-Big Ten recognition.
The 82 Academic All-Big Ten honors follow a school record of 91 honorees in 2019.
The women’s swimming and diving team led the Nittany Lions for the second consecutive year with 18 Academic All-Big Ten honorees. The men’s swimming and diving team totaled 12 recipients to give the program a combined 30 Academic All-Big Ten honorees. Junior Jack Baldwin of men’s gymnastics earned a perfect 4.0 grade-point average.
The men’s hockey team accounted for 15 recipients of Academic All-Big Ten honors following their Big Ten regular-season championship. The 15 honorees were the second-most among the Penn State programs.
A total of 176 Nittany Lion students have earned Academic All-Big plaudits so far in 2019-20. This brings Penn State’s total to 6,779 Academic All-Big Ten honorees since 1991-92.
A school-record 368 student-athletes earned Academic All-Big Ten honors in 2018-19.
The Academic All-Big Ten recipients for the women’s hockey, men’s and women’s fencing and men’s and women’s indoor track teams will be announced with the spring and at-large sport honorees later this year.
Penn State student-athletes have led the athletic department to 34 Big Ten championships and nine NCAA National Championships since October 2013. For the 20th time in the last 26 years the Nittany Lions finished in top 15 in the Learfield IMG College Director’s Cup.
To be eligible for Academic All-Big Ten selection, students must be on a varsity team, as verified by being on the official squad list as of March 1 for winter sports, who have been enrolled full-time at the institution for a minimum of 12 months and carry a cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 or higher.
The conference office also awards Academic All-Big Ten distinction in the fall and spring seasons and will present the Distinguished Scholar Award at the end of the academic year. To be eligible for selection, students must be a recipient of Academic All-Big Ten Recognition in the previous academic year, must be enrolled for the entire previous academic year (two semesters or three quarters) and earned a minimum GPA of 3.7 or higher during that time. The Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award was established by conference Faculty Representatives as an addition to the conference’s Academic All-Big Ten program.
Record-Breaking NCAA Graduation Success Rate
The 2019 NCAA’s annual graduation rates study of institutions across the nation revealed Penn State student-athletes at the University Park campus earned a Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 91 percent to break the school’s all-time record of 90, which was previously set in the 2010, 2017 and 2018 NCAA reports. Nittany Lion students posted a 91 percent graduation rate compared to the 88 percent average for all Division I institutions for students entering from 2009-10 through the 2012-13 academic year.
Penn State student-athletes have delivered a Graduation Success Rate in the 88-91 percent range during each of the past 13 NCAA reports, improving from 88 percent in the 2015 report, to 89 percent in 2016, to 90 percent in 2017 and 2018, and a record-breaking 91 percent figure in 2019. Ten Nittany Lion programs earned 100% graduation rates and 18 programs were above the national average.
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