Last week, an Associated Press story reported that 27 FBS programs (including several big names) used special admissions waivers for football players at a rate ten times that of how often they're granted to the general student population. Private schools were not included as they don't have to comply with state public records laws, and several programs just plain refused to cooperate anyway. Of note here is that the Rutgers football program was indeed one of the afore-mentioned 27 schools.
There's an interesting contrast here to RU football's stellar graduation rate. In this case, I recommend that any readers revisit my post from a year ago about admissions standards. Basically, the grad rate and the program's leading APR score mean that Rutgers football does a greate job of keeping players eligible and making sure that they leave with a diploma.
All of that has absolutely nothing to do admissions standards for athletes. Now, despite the high prevalence of special admits, my post about admissions standards shows that Rutgers football is pretty much dead in the middle of the pack as far as that goes. It may mean that the general student athlete admit is in fairly decent shape, but they'll loosen the standards to a great extent in certain circumstances. Schiano and staff will indeed take a few chances here and there, but only if they believe that a player can handle college. In fact, their terrific track record with academic support shows that Rutgers is a good fit for borderline student-athletes who may need additional structure to succeed academically.