NCAA report: Mercer achieves top graduation mark in state

The Mercer athletics program achieved its best Graduation Success Rate in a report released Wednesday by the NCAA.

Mercer's score of 90 was the highest score of any of Georgia's NCAA Division I institutions, scoring at least two points higher than each program in the state. The Bears were also one of just three Southern Conference members with an overall score of 90 or above for the GSR, which is based on student-athletes that entered the school in the fall of 2008.

The Bears had six programs achieve a perfect score of 100, as women's basketball, women's golf, softball, women's soccer, men's tennis and women's tennis each reached the mark. Women's tennis has led the way for Mercer since the initial report in 1998, earning perfect scores in each of the 11 annual reports.

Nine of the 13 Mercer teams represented in the report had a score above the NCAA Division I average of 86, with baseball, men's golf and volleyball joining the previously mentioned six programs with that distinction. Additionally, 10 programs reported rates that matched or exceeded the previous years' score.

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 10:51 PM with the headline "NCAA report: Mercer achieves top graduation mark in state ."