UCLA gets a No. 1 ranking in this investigation

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An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation into SAT scores at BCS schools shows the discrepancies between athletes and student bodies as a whole are often more than 200 points, and substantially larger for football players at some schools.

At the University of Florida, football players averaged a whopping 346 points lower on their SATs than their classmates. Football programs averaged about 220 points lower than the student body among the 54 schools in the newspaper’s report.

The paper surveyed public schools in the BCS conferences and those that finished the 2007-08 season ranked in the football or men’s basketball top 25.

UCLA comes out atop one list: the greatest discrepancy between average SAT scores in the general population and athletes for freshman classes of 1998-2000. The overall UCLA SAT average was 1275, while the athlete average was 1028. The gap of 247 points was No. 1 among the schools surveyed.

USC, as a private university, was not included in the investigation.

-- Mike James