The WKU volleyball team reacts during a Selection Sunday watch party for the NCAA Volleyball Tournament at Indian Hills Country Club.

In addition to its record graduation rates and 3.17 cumulative GPA, Western Kentucky’s athletics department continues to shine with strong marks in the latest Academic Progress Rate (APR) Institutional Report released by the NCAA on Tuesday.

The APR provides a real-time look at a program’s academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship. The APR accounts for eligibility, retention and graduation and provides a measure of each team’s academic performance. This year, the APR score was a multi-year average of the 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years.

All of WKU’s athletic programs exceeded the NCAA’s mandated 930 minimum, and 12 programs surpassed that threshold by 40 points or more.

Five of WKU’s programs had a perfect score of 1,000 across that time period and nine programs achieved a perfect score during the 2022-23 academic year.

The five programs with perfect multi-year scores were women’s cross country, women’s golf, softball, tennis and volleyball.

In November, it was announced by the NCAA that WKU had reached its highest Graduation Success Rate (GSR) in program history. WKU posted an overall GSR of 88. In five of the last six GSR reports, WKU has achieved a score of 85 or higher.