Bruins steady in latest APR rankings

The NCAA released its annual Academic Progress Rate reports this morning, which means anyone can go fiddle with the somewhat-cumbersome search engine and figure out which rivals they can mock for their classroom failures. While certainly imperfect, the APR — which factors in eligibility and retention — is still the only college athletics’ only comprehensive academic metric.

Here are the rankings for Pac-12 football, which average out the four academic years through 2011-12:

1. Stanford, 978
2. UCLA, 966
3. Utah, 963
4. Oregon St, 957
5. Arizona, 956
6. Washington, 954
7. Oregon, 951
8. Colorado, 946
9. USC, 945
10. Washington St, 942
11. Arizona St, 937
12. Cal, 935

Stanford is generally near the top of the conference in APR rankings, and the latest data did little to change that. The Cardinal rank No. 10 in the country among BCS teams. UCLA ticked up 10 points from 956 and stayed in second. On the other end, both Arizona State and Cal are wallowing in the bottom 10 of major conference teams — an embarrassment for a league that also likes to pride itself on academics.

Here are the standings for men’s basketball APR:
1. Washington, 985
2. Colorado, 984
2. Stanford, 984
4. Utah, 979
5. Arizona St, 973
6. Arizona, 969
7. Oregon St, 965
8. Washington St, 957
8. USC, 957
10. Cal, 955
11. UCLA, 951
12. Oregon, 918

The Bruins don’t look good at 11th here, but they’re closer to the middle of the pack than they are to last-place Oregon. UCLA’s 951 places it in the 40th-50th percentile range for Division I men’s basketball, and also improved on its 942 average a year ago.

Men’s water polo and women’s golf even secured perfect 1,000s.

Every score mentioned so far was a four-year average — which is what matters when avoiding NCAA penalties. (As for single-year APR scores, a number of UCLA teams scored perfect 1,000s: baseball, men’s golf, men’s volleyball, men’s water polo, women’s basketball, women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, softball, women’s swimming, and women’s tennis.

You can view the full PDF for UCLA, which includes percentile ranges and various subcategory averages.

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero can also receive a bonus of up to $20,000 for achieving “reasonable progress” in academic performance, and up to another $10,000 for “unusual progress.” Chancellor Gene Block must weigh at least the previous two academic years in evaluating any bonus decisions.