Hillsdale College tied for second nationally in the NCAA’s Division II for college academic success ratings released Nov. 17.
Even with a Princeton Review academic rating of 93, Hillsdale earned a 98 percent academic success rating for the student athletes who graduate within six years of enrolling at an institution of higher education, according to data from those who enrolled in college between 2006 and 2009. That is an increase from 93 percent for 2005-2008. Scoring higher than 90 percent, Hillsdale also was one of 26 institutions to receive the President’s Award for Academic Excellence, doing so for the fifth year in a row when the award was introduced.
“To have this kind of ASR ranking should be a natural result of what we are trying to accomplish in our athletics program,” Athletic Director Don Brubacher said. “It simply means our athletic program fits the college as it should be.”
Point Loma Nazarene University in California took first in Division II with an academic success rating of 99 percent. Hillsdale tied with Bentley University in Massachusetts and Saint Michael’s College in Vermont.
The Princeton Review — which uses student surveys and college information concerning hours of study, quality of students, professor evaluations, class sizes and student-professor ratio, and college resources to provide institutions an academic rating between 60 and 99 — gave Bentley a score of 85 and Saint Michael’s 83. Point Loma Nazarene doesn’t have an academic rating.
Hillsdale was one of two institutions in the GLIAC to receive the President’s Award. The University of Findlay had an academic success rating of 90.
Hillsdale also earned a rating higher than any institution in the GMAC, the conference it will join along with Findlay starting July 1, 2017. Cedarville University earned a 93 percent academic success rating and Davis and Elkins College a 91 percent.
If all four institutions in the GMAC continue to have high academic success ratings, the conference will be one of two to have four institutions receiving the President’s Award for Division II.
“GMAC would be noteworthy for academic success,” Brubacher said.
The academic success rate also evaluates colleges by sports. Women’s basketball, cross country and track, softball, tennis, and volleyball also received an academic success rating of 100 percent.
The academic success rate is unique in that it includes student athletes who transferred from another institution and don’t receive scholarships. The federal graduation rate for student athletes doesn’t include those students. It also includes athletes who left an institution with a good academic standing, while the academic success rate doesn’t.
In a comparison of Hillsdale’s academic success rates to the average federal rates, Hillsdale’s student athletes outperformed by 20 percent or more in nearly every sport. Women’s basketball had the largest difference with a 35-point spread.
The football team also had a substantially larger graduation rate than the average federal rate. Its 97 percent academic success rate crushed the 73 percent federal average.
Head Football Coach Keith Otterbein said Hillsdale recruits players who are academically driven and focused. GPA and standardized test scores are the first admissions criteria coaches evaluate, he said, and they make it clear to recruits that Hillsdale’s academics are rigorous.
“I marvel at our students,” Otterbein said. “To do what they do in the classroom and then come down here by choice and go through what they go through physically, mentally, emotionally to invest in the athletic side of it, it’s amazing they can keep everything at such a high level.”
The 31 freshman football players this year had a 3.74 high school GPA and an average ACT score of 29.6.
Finding so many athletes that can achieve academically what Hillsdale requires and still compete at a championship-level, however, is a challenge, since Hillsdale is unique in Division II in that regard, Otterbein said.
“No one is Division II has done it,” Otterbein said. “We’re setting the tone and the bar of how you go about doing that.”
In fact, Hillsdale’s students are educated at an institution that the Princeton Review rates among some of the most prestigious colleges in the country. Hillsdale’s 93 rate outpaced Harvard University’s 87 and Cornell University’s 91, while just shy of the 94 given to Brown, Columbia, and Princeton universities.
Brubacher said Hillsdale’s academic program gives the athletic program the opportunity to recruit high achievers and succeed in the classroom.
“We are working with the assumption that it will not create a competitive disadvantage for us,” Brubacher said. “The results, at this point, indicate we can compete competitively with high academic standards.”
He pointed to the increasing historical success of the baseball, cross country, softball, and track teams in recent years, as the teams recruit players with even higher GPAs and test scores.
Once on the team, players continue to have academic requirements to meet. Many sports teams have allocated study table times to work on homework.
The football team also has freshmen and upperclassmen who need the assistance meet with their position coaches every other week for grade and attendance checks. Athletes that need help with time management can also work with the football team’s chaplain, Father Duane Beauchamp.
“By us investing our time and energy in it, they understand that this is important,” Otterbein said.
Otterbein, however, mostly credited Hillsdale’s professors who actively work and engage with student athletes as well as upperclassman players who set an academically minded example for younger players.
“They’re not just dumb jocks,” Otterbein said. “Our kids really do want a good education. They choose hard.”
And ultimately, the dedication student athletes exhibit in the classroom and on the field, track, course, or court aids them after graduation, Otterbein said.
“They go out in the real world, and they kill it,” he said. “It’s a step slower than what student athletes have to do here.”
