INDIANAPOLIS – Three Great Midwest institutions have earned the Presidents’ Award of Academic Excellence. Hillsdale, Trevecca Nazarene and Cedarville have all been honored with the award this year.
 
The Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence is awarded to Division II schools that have achieved an Academic Success Rate (ASR) of 90% or higher. This year, 44 Division II schools earned the honor. The NCAA and the federal government measure time to graduate within a six-year window of first-time enrollment. Thus, the graduation rates for the 2012-2015 cohorts would have been reported from 2019 to 2022.
 
Hillsdale College led the Great Midwest honorees with a 98% Academic Success Rate followed by Trevecca Nazarene University with a 97% rate. Both Hillsdale and Trevecca were among the top six Division II institutions in the country. Cedarville University was not far behind boasting a 94% graduation rate ranking the Yellow Jackets in the top 15.
 
This is the 12th year the award has been given. Eight schools have earned the award every year: Assumption, Bentley, Eckerd, Hillsdale, Rockhurst, Rollins, Saint Michael's and Seattle Pacific.
 
The national four-year ASR average remained at 76%, according to the most recent Academic Success Rate data.
 
Similar to Division I's Graduation Success Rate, the Division II ASR includes transfers into a school in the calculation and removes likely transfers out who left school while academically eligible. In addition, given the partial scholarship financial aid model of Division II, the ASR data includes student-athletes not on athletically related financial aid. The result is that ASR captures more than 30,000 non-scholarship student-athletes who were enrolled in the four years covered in the most recent data.
 
Even when utilizing the less-inclusive federal rate, Division II student-athletes outperform the general student body by 8%. The federal rate for Division II student-athletes remained the same at 60%, while the general student body also remained the same at 52%.
 
Overall, eight Great Midwest institutions finished with an 80% or better Academic Success Rate. First-year member Northwood tallied an 86% ASR in its previous conference affiliation.
 
Like the NCAA GSR in Division I, the ASRs in Division II and Division III were formed after presidents and chancellors called for the Association to develop a measure of graduation success that better reflects transfer patterns and the population of student-athletes in higher education.