11
votes
Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?
Link information
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- Authors
- Emma Camp, Matt Welch, Lenore Skenazy, Autumn Billings, Liz Wolfe
- Published
- Dec 4 2025
- Word count
- 900 words
There is no actual evidence presented in this article that students are gaming the system, just the perception of medically unqualified observers (professors, journalists, etc), which are often very wrong. I don't see how this is any different than when people complain about the uptick in things like ADHD diagnoses. Even if the percentage of students with diagnoses like ADHD is higher than you (general you, not you OP) would have expected, why is that reason to distrust the opinion of experts who come up with the criteria for making a diagnosis?
Disability accommodations are actually already sort of hard to get. I've had plenty of students with no official accommodation struggle to get them — it often comes down to having the resources (both time, money, and know-how) to navigate the system to get a diagnosis from a doctor. It's not very surprising to me that rich students may have access to more of those resources than others.
In any case, this situation feels a little bit like the free school lunch debate to me. I personally am not really bothered if some people get accomodations who don't need them, if it means it is easier for students who do need them to get them. There are other more serious issues with fairness at the university level that would have a much bigger impact if they were addressed (cough legacy admissions cough).
The original article in the Atlantic (to which this is a reaction) was better and more detailed. As an example, that article explained that students taking the LSAT with accommodations scored on average (if I recall correctly) seven points higher then students without accommodations, which is both massively significant and suggests that something is not working right. To your point, the thing that isn't working right might not necessarily be that students are getting accommodations they don't need, but something isn't working.
I don't disagree there, re: something isn't working. Grade inflation in general is a big issue (also probably bigger than fake accommodations, but of course all of these things are related).
I think where this “reaction” article misses is that it says 38% have diagnoses but doesn’t mention if 38% have accommodations. I would assume the number with accommodations is lower, but I haven’t seen the data or the original article.
I’d be really interested to seeing more research on this subject, because I wonder if you could attribute the higher scores just to less-stress and not needing to rush, or if there are other variables at play as well.
I know the LSAT is much harder than pre-college tests like the ACT, but I know that in my case, having an accommodation like “more time” would likely not have affected my score on the ACT at all - because I finished early and had time to go back and check my answers even. But there are definitely students with ADHD or anxiety or test anxiety that benefit from “extra time” accommodations.
Quote from the article:
Students in a high pressure environment getting diagnosed with anxiety or depression does not surprise me one bit, and I think that goes along with what you’re saying here.
There you go, it's because the definition criteria is skewed. Of course they're going to have anxiety or depression in an elite high stress environment. ADHD is just about par for the course for some of the most intelligent highest level min-maxing intelligent and motivated people.
Do you believe people with these conditions should be given special allowances? It seems to be this is just kind of normal every life stuff in today's world. They won't really be given allowances at their future jobs.
There aren't many instances at a job where you need to ask for allowances of this sort, i.e. an extra 30 minutes to complete a task that has a fixed start and stop time. If there are hard deadlines for certain tasks, almost always one can simply begin early. The only time I wouldn't support accommodations is if there are safety concerns surrounding the extended time allotment for a task (e.g. something like air traffic controllers or some such).
The academic setting of timed exams is just not something that is often reproduced elsewhere.
I have a few friends who are faculty at private universities - Stanford, Claremont Mckenna, Duke - and a few at public universities - UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, San Diego State, University of Hawaii - and there is a real difference when speaking to them about their experience. The private school professors, be it all folks who have been hired in the last 7 years, are all complaining heavily about their inability to fail students. Ones at Stanford and Claremont Mckenna have both cited needed to provide evidence of reaching out individually to students, offering extra tutoring or support, before they are able to submit a failing grade. On the flip-side, I've heard of professors at public school complaining about the number of students asking for exceptions - but not being under mandate or guidance to provide them. I've heard from all of them that the level of effort, comprehension, and engagement are all way down.
All to say, it doesn't sound like elite private schools are any more stressful. In most cases it sounds like it's nearly impossible to fail. Much to the chagrin of faculty working there.
Just anecdotes, but I went to a similarish school to Stanford and there were many students I knew who self reportedly falsified an academic diagnosis for ADHD or autism to get extra time on exams. There were guides passed around group chats on how to do it.
Related: https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
Woah.