Average SAT is 2130 and GPA is 4.02. Statistics can be misleading when you look at acceptance rates due to the size of school, Number of applicants, degree's offered and the cost of the school. A better statistic is the type of student that applies that does not get into the school. Its also around the degree's offered. Not a lot of football theory degree's there or Phys Ed. If you are not a straight A student and tops in your class you are not getting into that school. They compete with the Ivy league and high academic non-Ivy (Stanford, MIT, NW, etc..).
Only two players are documented as not meeting admissions requirements and were admitted. Tony Rice and Chris Zorich. They seemed to be pretty good players and to their credit they did well in school. Maybe ND could start an outreach program to allow a slightly less than perfect score for a small percentage of athletes who have potential but maybe did not get an opportunity to go to a top prep school.
http://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/colleges/Notre-Dame-SAT-scores-GPA
The reality is the admissions department and athletic department work together to identify great athletes that can stay in school, get a degree with the assistance needed due to the grueling schedule for all student athletes. Its probably less about if we take some border students and more about are they willing to put the work in to make the grade with athletics. If they are, they will do fine. Some players could care less about the degree. If they are not interested in attempting to do well in both, they just will not get an offer. Its that simple.