April 18, 2011

EVANSTON, Ill. -- A school-record 18 of Northwestern's 19 varsity programs achieved team GPAs of 3.00 or better in the winter quarter of 2011, highlighting a stellar academic quarter for the Wildcats.

The previous mark had been 17 out of 19 teams with 3.00 or better GPAs, established multiple times in previous academic periods.

Northwestern announced last week that its football program set a record for quarterly GPA with a 3.02 mark. This is the third time the football team has achieved a 3.00 or better quarterly GPA; spring quarter 2009 and winter quarter 2010 were the others.

Overall, the Wildcats' student-athlete GPA for winter quarter 2011 was 3.17, tied for NU's fourth-highest mark. All 19 varsity programs had 2.90 or better GPAs for the third time in school history. In addition, all 19 teams have attained cumulative GPAs at or above 2.95 so far for the academic year with 14 of those teams over a 3.00.

Out of Northwestern's total student-athlete population of 449 people, 294 (65 percent) earned GPAs of 3.00 or better last quarter, with 142 of them over a 3.50 and 33 attaining a perfect 4.00.

"Our student-athletes' tremendous work in the classroom continues to establish new standards of excellence," Director of Athletics and Recreation Jim Phillips said. "In addition to these outstanding accomplishments, Wildcat athletes have earned 132 Academic All-Big Ten awards this year, which is 11 more than our school-record at this time last season. I cannot emphasize enough how proud we are of our student-athletes."

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