Athletes Going to College Get "Special" Treatment
By Brent Schrotenboer, Union-Tribune

They are called "special admits" – students accepted at universities even though their grades or test scores don’t meet the school’s regular academic admission standards. They exist for a variety of reasons: to help accommodate the disadvantaged, to attract students with "special talents" and to help schools stay competitive in recruiting top athletes. While the NCAA rulebook makes it clear that they are allowed, it’s left up to member schools to decide how many times they bend their normal admission standards to reel in top athletes. And just as admission standards vary by school, a survey of admissions data by The San Diego Union-Tribune found a wide range of approaches in determining how many athletes to enroll as special admits – if any.

Schools such as Air Force, Colorado State and UCSD say if applicants don’t meet their standards, they are not admitted, prized recruits or not. "All of our students, including athletes, meet at least the minimum standards for enrollment," a Colorado State official responded. At the other end of the spectrum, according to the survey of 19 Western public institutions, were UCLA and San Diego State. Seventy percent of scholarship athletes at UCLA over the previous three years were special admits; for SDSU, that figure was 64.5 percent. By contrast, the percentage of special admits for the general student body is far lower: about 3 percent at UCLA and 20 percent at SDSU. "In order to be competitive in Division I-A athletics, you’re going to have to have some flexibility compared to your normal admission policy," UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor Tom Lifka said. "We need those students if we're going to be competitive in certain sports."

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