Admissions to Florida’s public universities are getting more competitive. But schools still admit students lacking basic qualifications.

Nearly 1,000 students who lacked the grades or test scores to get into the state’s four-year universities were admitted and enrolled in the fall 2018 freshman class, data obtained through a records request shows. These so-called “alternative admits” represent about 3 percent of the 30,670 freshman who entered the state’s universities last August.