[CTcard]

I certainly wouldn't want to single out individual students who don't end up getting a degree, but a footnote to explain how players going pro early (but being in good academic standing when they left) affects the rate would be useful, primarily in football. Something like "Stanford's football GSR would have been X% if not for the early departures of [list players], all of whom left for the NFL prior to graduating but who were in good academic standing when they left and have expressed their intent to complete their degrees." 


(While GSR includes student-athletes who transfer in good academic standing, it's not clear to me whether it includes student-athletes who leave school early to pursue professional opportunities, like Christian McCaffrey, Kaden Smith, Justin Reid, etc., but who leave in good standing. Can anyone confirm that it does or doesn't? This line from the Stanford post--"The Graduation Success Rate excludes from the calculation student-athletes who leave an institution who are academically eligible to compete such as transfer students"--could exclude such student-athletes as written, but I'd thought that the calculation treated transfer students differently than folks who leave early to go pro.)

GSR drops from the calculation any student who leaves school while eligible to compete, regardless of where they go.

The official justification for doing so is that transfers, presumably, often graduate from the school they transfer to - and at any rate the claim is they should be the responsibility of the new school. That's why the NCAA publications emphasize the word transfer, but in fact they don't track why anybody leaves - only that they leave.

If you care, here is a Politifact article (published in the Tampa Bay Times) that discusses the issues with both the NCAA's GSR and the federally mandated graduation rate, primarily with an eye towards men's basketball. 
GSR Article

[CTcard]

I certainly wouldn't want to single out individual students who don't end up getting a degree, but a footnote to explain how players going pro early (but being in good academic standing when they left) affects the rate would be useful, primarily in football. Something like "Stanford's football GSR would have been X% if not for the early departures of [list players], all of whom left for the NFL prior to graduating but who were in good academic standing when they left and have expressed their intent to complete their degrees." 


(While GSR includes student-athletes who transfer in good academic standing, it's not clear to me whether it includes student-athletes who leave school early to pursue professional opportunities, like Christian McCaffrey, Kaden Smith, Justin Reid, etc., but who leave in good standing. Can anyone confirm that it does or doesn't? This line from the Stanford post--"The Graduation Success Rate excludes from the calculation student-athletes who leave an institution who are academically eligible to compete such as transfer students"--could exclude such student-athletes as written, but I'd thought that the calculation treated transfer students differently than folks who leave early to go pro.)

GSR drops from the calculation any student who leaves school while eligible to compete, regardless of where they go.

The official justification for doing so is that transfers, presumably, often graduate from the school they transfer to - and at any rate the claim is they should be the responsibility of the new school. That's why the NCAA publications emphasize the word transfer, but in fact they don't track why anybody leaves - only that they leave.

If you care, here is a Politifact article (published in the Tampa Bay Times) that discusses the issues with both the NCAA's GSR and the federally mandated graduation rate, primarily with an eye towards men's basketball. 
GSR Article