UK Athletics’ 3.0 GPA Streak Reaches 23 After 2nd-Highest GPA Semester

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With grades for the 2023 fall semester now finalized, University of Kentucky Athletics has surpassed its goal of a 3.0 cumulative grade-point average for 23 straight semesters, as Wildcat scholarship student-athletes combined to achieve a GPA of 3.336. Including non-scholarship athletes from all sports, the overall UK Athletics GPA was 3.335.

The scholarship student-athlete GPA marks the second highest for a semester for UK Athletics, finishing just behind the record set in the spring of 2020 and just above of the previous second highest in the spring of 2023. The 3.534 cumulative GPA in the spring of 2020 – fueled in part by the pass/fail policy enacted campus-wide in response to challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic – surpassed the previous record of 3.210 set in spring 2014.

“Congratulations to our student-athletes for another strong semester,” UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said. “I’m thankful for their hard work and for the guidance and encouragement provided by our coaches and academic support staff.”

The women’s golf team led the department with a fall GPA of 3.860 in both categories, setting the benchmark among all 23 varsity teams. The women’s cross country team finished second with a 3.795 among competing student-athletes, while women’s soccer was second in the competing scholarship and non-scholarship category (3.794).  Men’s cross country was the top male team with 3.54 (competing scholarship athletes) and 3.714 (competing scholarship and non-scholarship).

Individually, 449 Wildcats achieved a GPA of 3.0 or higher, including 140 Cats who reached 4.0 for the semester.

UK’s high marks in the fall semester continue the trend of strong academic news:

• Graduation marked yet another milestone of academic success as UK Athletics had a total of 168 graduates during the 2023 calendar year alone.
• Recently, UK tied the school record for its NCAA Graduation Success Rate of 92 percent, one point above the national average of 91 percent while all of UK’s teams surpassed the mandatory score for the NCAA Academic Progress Rate. UK’s overall APR rate was higher than the overall national average.
• In August of this year, UK Athletics announced a school-record 12 Academic All-Americans for the 2022-23 school year from the College Sports Communicators organization.

UK Athletics supports the academic success of its student-athletes through CATS – the first academic center of its kind dedicated solely to serving student-athletes. CATS is an important component of UK’s Student-Athlete Experience division, launched as a renewal of the department’s commitment to prepare student-athletes to enter life after UK.