Northwestern saw a school record of 121 Big Ten Distinguished Scholars recipients for the 2020-2021 academic year, the conference announced Thursday.

This year’s record beat the 2019-2020 school year record of 106 recipients. Each of the 19 varsity programs had at least one recognized athlete — just the second time this has occurred in school history, after happening for the first time last year. 

To earn the recognition, athletes must have been enrolled at NU for the entire previous academic year, attained a minimum GPA of 3.7 and also received the Academic All-Big Ten Recognition Award. The women’s basketball and women’s fencing teams led their respective sports among the conference for the second year in a row with six and 12 recognized athletes, respectively. 

A school record of 349 athletes earned the Academic All-Big Ten Award — a recognition for athletes who earned a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher — for the 2020-2021 school year. This achievement allowed the University to accumulate over 200 Academic All-Big Ten Awards for the 11th year in a row.

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Twitter: @rebecca_aizin

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