ABOUT THE AWARDS:
Academic All-America Teams are selected by College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA)College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA) selects Academic All-America teams in 12 programs: football, women’s volleyball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball, men’s track & field/cross country, women’s track & field/cross country, men’s at-large and women’s at-large. A first team, second team and third team are selected in both the University (Division I and I-AA) and College (Division II, III and NAIA) Divisions. Football consists of just first and second teams.
At-Large ProgramEligible sports are women’s bowling, women’s crew, men’s and women’s fencing, women’s field hockey, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s rifle, men’s and women’s skiing, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s volleyball, men’s and women’s water polo and men’s wrestling.
In the at-large program, nominations are limited to three per school per gender. Thus, each institution may nominate a total of three men’s at-large candidates and three women’s at-large candidates. If an institution participates in both the college and the university divisions, it may nominate a total of three men and three women between the two divisions. There is no limit to the number of candidates that may be nominated for a particular sport.
Nomination CriteriaTo be nominated, the student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.20 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale) for his/her career. No athlete is eligible until he/she has reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at his/her current institution (thus, true freshmen, red-shirt freshmen and ineligible transfers are not eligible). In the cases of transfers, graduate students and junior college graduates, the athlete must have completed one full academic year at the nominating institution to be eligible.
