What is an Academic All-American?
Academic All-America is the national honour for college athletes who combine a significant athletic season with high academic standing. It is unusual in requiring both: an athlete must be a starter or significant contributor and carry a cumulative grade-point average at or above the programme's minimum — historically 3.30, raised to 3.50 — to be nominated at all.[1] [2]
Who runs the programme?
College Sports Communicators — known for most of its history as CoSIDA, the College Sports Information Directors of America — has selected Academic All-America teams since 1952. Sports information directors nominate athletes from their own institutions and vote by district; district winners advance to the national ballot, which produces First, Second and Third Teams.[1] [3]
Which divisions are covered?
All of American college sport: NCAA Division I, II and III, the NAIA, and two-year colleges, each with its own teams. Selections are made in sport groupings — men's and women's at-large, track and field and cross country, basketball, football, soccer, baseball and softball — with an Academic All-America of the Year named in each.[1] [2]
Why does it matter?
Because the two thresholds are independent and both are national. An athlete cannot be nominated on grades alone or on results alone, and the pool is every eligible athlete in the division — which makes the honour a compact, verifiable statement about performance in and out of competition, published annually by a body with a seventy-year record of doing it.[1] [3]
References
- College Sports Communicators — Academic All-America Program. Accessed August 2026.
- NCAA — Academic All-America. Accessed August 2026.
- College Sports Communicators. Accessed August 2026.