Athletes aren’t exactly known for their brains, but how exactly do some of these jocks make it into school at all? With string pulling, of course.
 

The only actual requirement for college athletes is that they meet the NCAA eligibility level. While the NCAA uses a sliding scale, eligibility for freshmen is based on GPA and standardized tests. The minimum GPA requirement is a 2.0, but that would mean the same athlete would need to have scored a 1,010 on the SATs.
 

However, it’s pretty safe to assume most colleges have slightly higher admissions standards. So what’s a school to do? For most, when it comes to getting that star athlete with less than stellar grades, the school simply looks the other way. The Indianapolis Star reports on their own study of this little studied practice:

Many of the nation's largest universities rely on special admits -- students admitted under exceptions to normal admission standards for reasons including "special talent" -- to stock their football teams, an Indianapolis Star study of 55 universities found.

For instance, take Texas A&M. In 2004, 94 percent of its freshmen football players were considered “special admits” who didn’t meet regular standards. Ninety-four percent??? That’s compared to only eight percent of the regular student body who got special treatment.
 

There aren’t a lot of stats on the tendency to let poor grades slide, but the reasons behind it are pretty obvious:

The reason for the preponderance of special admits in football is simple: Football is the financial engine for most college athletic departments, and schools need such athletes to compete.

What’s being said between the lines? Those same athletes are not necessarily so smart.
 

But even dumb athletes = lots of money in ticket sales.
 

That’s math even a quarterback can do.