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Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

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Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#121

Post by apparent »

MangoToupe wrote: post #109
hibikir wrote: post #58

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…

> I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. What on earth is a "malicious" explanation of this?

That people know they do not actually need/qualify for accommodations, but misrepresent themselves in order to get them?

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#122

Post by kgwgk »

weehobbes wrote: post #91

I have a teenager who is at an academically rigorous college prep school. He is incredibly bright and one of the best students in the school. But he has an accommodation in math for extra time because he has a form of dyscalculia which makes him very prone to misreading and mixing up in working memory the numbers, symbols and other formulas. He understands all the concepts well, but his disability results in calculat…

Everyone who runs out of time does actually need extra time!

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#123

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

margalabargala wrote: post #103
lostmsu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose cheating to get housing benefits is less of a dumpster fuck vs cheating to get ahead of other people in education.

The word "cheating" is loaded with a lot of values and judgement that I think makes it inappropriate to use the way you did. There's a point where it's not immoral to leverage systems available to you to land yourself in a better situation. Avoiding increasingly-overcrowded housing situations is I think one of them. If Stanford's standards for these housing waivers are sufficiently broad that 38% of their students qu…

In the culture I grew up in, this was considered cheating.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#124

Post by jfindper »

MangoToupe wrote: post #109
hibikir wrote: post #58

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…

> I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. What on earth is a "malicious" explanation of this?

One example of a malicious explanation would be: people are lying about having a disability to get some sort of benefits they don’t need, likely at the expense of someone who does need those benefits.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#125

Post by apparent »

acedTrex wrote: post #39
OGEnthusiast wrote: post #25

American society is at the point where if you don't play these sort of games/tricks, you'll get out-competed by those who do. Bleak.

Basic game theory at work right there. You only need a few bad apples to cause the entire system to devolve.

Yup, a few bad apples start things off, and then after that many others who would have never been the first to do this decide to jump on the bandwagon (lest they be left behind). If it weren't for the shameless folks at the beginning, it wouldn't happen. But once they kick things off, it's a domino effect from there.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#126

Post by psunavy03 »

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #25

American society is at the point where if you don't play these sort of games/tricks, you'll get out-competed by those who do. Bleak.

Depends highly on your field. There are plenty of military personnel and commercial pilots hiding things or avoiding being seen for any kind of treatment, because a diagnosis could lose them their jobs.

Rolling out electronic health records has been a disaster for military recruiting, because such a large portion of kids flat-out lied on the medical screening, and 60+ percent of the population is already disqualified.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#128

Post by anon84873628 »

delichon wrote: post #24

If 38% of the top 1% of students have learning disabilities then I'd expect students near the mean to be 100% learning disabled, if those words have any meaning left.

Let's posit that modern society is not really well suited for the true primate nature of humans. If participating in society is the benchmark, then almost all of us are disabled.

As Scott Alexander opens his essay:

>The human brain wasn’t built for accounting or software engineering. A few lucky people can do these things ten hours a day, every day, with a smile. The rest of us start fidgeting and checking our cell phone somewhere around the thirty minute mark. I work near the financial district of a big city, so every day a new Senior Regional Manipulator Of Tiny Numbers comes in and tells me that his brain must be broken because he can’t sit still and manipulate tiny numbers as much as he wants. How come this is so hard for him, when all of his colleagues can work so diligently?

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mo...

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#130

Post by [deleted] »

margalabargala wrote: post #103
lostmsu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose cheating to get housing benefits is less of a dumpster fuck vs cheating to get ahead of other people in education.

The word "cheating" is loaded with a lot of values and judgement that I think makes it inappropriate to use the way you did. There's a point where it's not immoral to leverage systems available to you to land yourself in a better situation. Avoiding increasingly-overcrowded housing situations is I think one of them. If Stanford's standards for these housing waivers are sufficiently broad that 38% of their students qu…

[deleted]
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