Illinois Boosters Got Admissions Help for Non-Athletes

The ever-growing University of Illinois admissions scandal has now reached athletics. Many big-time athletics programs face controversy over their requests that admissions officers let in athletes with less than stellar academic credentials. But the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday that at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, some athletic boosters had senior athletics administrators lobby on behalf of non-athletes -- applicants with ties of some sort to the donors -- and the athletics administrators complied, in at least one case turning an automatic rejection based on a poor academic performance into an acceptance.