FAR Scores & Why They Matter
We love data and acronyms at CACE, and our newest is FAR (Freshmen Athlete Retention). Simply put, FAR measures the percentage of incoming true freshman on a team that will stay on the team for 4 years.
Here is an explanation of A FAR Score and why it matters–
How is FAR score calculated?
To calculate a program’s FAR we looked back to 2010 (or to when team rosters are publicly available) and identified each player who had been on the roster as a true freshman since then. We then determined whether that player was on the roster three seasons later, in what would have academically been their senior year. Take an example like UCLA Women’s soccer. From 2010-2018 they had 75 true freshmen join the team, 52 of them were still on the roster three years later. This gave them a FAR score of 69.3%. We don’t include freshmen from after 2018 because they haven’t had a chance to be on the team for a fourth season yet.
What is a good FAR score?
If you’re a recruit who asks a coach how many years they expect you to be on the team, they’ll tell you four years (unless maybe you’re an elite football, men’s basketball or baseball recruit). If you’re imagining your ideal student-athlete experience, it’s probably four years of playing on the team, with a bigger role each year as you learn and improve.
Based on this notion, in an ideal world, teams would have a FAR of 100%. No team does. So when using FAR score as a tool to evaluate programs, you want schools with high FAR’s relative to other programs.
Some programs are apples and oranges. DIII and DI programs have different FAR’s in part because DI players are on scholarships that they only keep if they stay on the team. Different sports have different FAR scores too. Men’s basketball programs, on average, have a lower FAR score than women’s soccer because the potential for a lucrative pro career is higher for a men’s basketball player, giving them greater incentive to leave a program in search of playing time. Different schools also have different FAR scores, elite academic schools typically have higher FAR scores as their academic prowess often incentivizes students to stay through hardship.
An easy way to compare Far scores is to look at all of the programs in a conference. If you want to know if UCLA Women’s Soccer’s FAR score of 69.3% is “good” its helpful to see how it compares to Cal, USC, Stanford, Washington, and other programs in the PAC-12. This is why we group FAR scores by conference per sport.
Who is FAR most useful to?
FAR scores are most useful for potential recruits. Making a commitment to a college as a recruited student-athlete is an important personal, academic, athletic, and financial decision. One of the major questions high school recruits should be asking before committing to a school is, will I stay on the team once I commit? A scholarship only has value as long as a student stays on the team. FAR score provides a concrete percent of likelihood that a high school recruit will be able to stay on the team all four years as they work towards their degree based on past experiences of student-athletes who’ve already gone through the program.
Why should recruits rely on FAR?
Recruited student-athletes who are considering offers from multiple schools should compare their FAR scores before making a final decision because it is an objective, data based measurement of how likely student-athletes are to stay for four years in the program.
Other sources are motivated to mislead recruits. Coaches offer scholarships to high school recruits who will help them keep their jobs. Coaches are trying to sell the player on their program. Coaches are always motivated to tell recruits that they are going to have a great four years in the program, even if the team’s history has been that only one in three athletes play for 4 years.
Official visits are billed as a chance for recruits to “get a feel” for the school and the team. But these are manipulated by the coaches as well. Recruits are often invited for the weekend when the biggest football game is on campus, and taken to events that won’t really be a part of their daily activities. On these visits, recruits are surrounded by current members of the team, and even strategically paired with host players who are most likely to say good things about the coach.
Getting student-athletes to speak candidly about their experience in a program is a difficult task. Current players fear retaliation for saying negative things about the coaching staff or their teammates. Even former players who ultimately quit the team are often ashamed of their “failure” and unwilling to speak about their experience.
We may not be able to trust what people tell us about programs, but at CACE we believe that athletes’ actions speak louder than coaches’ words. If people are quitting a program in bunches, that’s a major red flag for a potential recruit and should be further investigated before you make a commitment to that school.
Some programs keep and develop the players they recruit with a high rate of success. Other schools can’t seem to keep anyone around. FAR scores measure this difference for recruits, and the numbers can tell the story that coaches and people around the program would otherwise hide from you.
Want access to Access to FAR scores? Consider making a one time purchase for updated FAR scores for the conference of your choosing. Click the link below to get in touch and request access to a specific set of FAR Scores.