they do, the admissions has certain minimal requirements for athletes. Just like Stanford or NW does. these schools including ND give more latitude to. coaches that want a player so say the kid was an c+ b- student in school and took all the required courses, was not an overall problem ethically and did average or somewhat near average in his standardized test and was a good athlete I guarantee NW, ND and Stanford would offer. That is the way it works. If the student did not take the language requirements that Notre Dame has ... He does not get into Notre Dame or the math requirements etc. I am sure it works the same way at NW.