Dartmouth placed third in the NCAA's 2011 report on student-athlete graduation rates, graduating 99 percent of athletes who entered the College in 2004. Barnard College and Brown University top the list with 100 percent success rates. The national graduation rate for college athletes is 82 percent the highest rate since the NCAA began keeping records over a decade ago, Bloomberg News reported. Because the NCAA graduation rate counts transfer students and midyear enrollees who graduate while the federal rate records these students as dropouts, the NCAA rate is higher than the federal graduation rate, according to Bloomberg. Improved academic success has been one of the NCAA's main goals in recent years, and the governing body recently adopted a rule that would essentially require teams to graduate at least 50 percent of their members in order to participate in NCAA postseason tournaments, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. If this rule had been in place last year, the University of Connecticut men's basketball team would have been ineligible to compete in the postseason basketball tournament that it went on to win. Female student-athletes had an 88 percent graduation rate over the past four years, while men had a 73 percent rate, according to the report. The findings highlight football and men's basketball as the sports with the lowest graduation figures, with rates just under 70 percent.
The Dartmouth women's basketball team was picked to finish in a tie for sixth place in the Ivy League preseason poll released on Tuesday. Dartmouth struggled through an injury-plagued season last year, finishing tied for last with a 3-11 record. This season, roughly half of the Big Green's roster will be made up of freshmen, and the team will likely need big contributions from its two upperclassmen, center Sasha Dosenko '12 and captain Faziah Steen '13. Two-time defending champion Princeton University was picked to finish first, while Harvard University the only team to beat Princeton last season was picked to finish second. League media and women's basketball sports information directors voted on the poll, according to IvyLeagueSports.com. The men's basketball team was picked to finish in last place in the men's preseason poll. The men's team is also young and includes six freshmen, with key upperclassmen David Rufful '12 and Jabari Trotter '12 returning. The Big Green will look to improve on last season, in which the team won just one conference game. Harvard was picked to win the League, marking the first time it has sat atop the preseason poll. Princeton and Yale University tied for second place. Harvard and Princeton tied for the League championship last season, while Princeton represented the conference in the NCAA tournament.
