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

reason.com

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

#241

Post by powerclue »

bvisness wrote: post #18
pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

> the current language of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows students to get expansive accommodations with little more than a doctor's note. Isn't that... good? What else would be expected if you have a disability, and need accomodations?

The Reason article leaves out some helpful context from the original Atlantic article: > In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association expanded the definition of ADHD. Previously, the threshold for diagnosis had been “clear evidence of clinically significant impairment.” After the release of the DSM‑5, the symptoms needed only to “interfere with, or reduce the quality” of, academic functioning. So it's dramatically e…

Have you gotten one of these notes yourself? It's not trivial. It's a huge pain in the ass, and everyone along the path is saying, "I don't believe you".

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

#242

Post by Spivak »

dyauspitr wrote: post #170
jph00 wrote: post #147

Amongst groups for extremely gifted kids I’ve seen, well over half are neurodivergent. It’s a well understood issue in gifted kids psychology. When these kids are accommodated appropriately they ace their classes, and when not, they fail out entirely, even at the most basic levels of education. So the statistics mentioned in the article are not necessarily inconsistent with what we’d expect, since Stanford is a highl…

What is neurodivergent though? If it’s a third of people, you can probably deem that normal.

I think, broadly, this is what neurodivergent people want. Nobody considers having poor vision a disability despite it nominally being one since it's so well accommodated. And it's so well accommodated in part because it affects so many people that it's normal.

The world right now doesn't do a great job of "by default" accommodating people with the broad class of difficulties experienced by people that fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence and takes as given that everyone is in the 70-80% group. So now it's a disability with doctor's visits and paperwork and specific individual accommodations when it very well could not be.

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

#243

Post by bjt12345 »

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #115
SoftTalker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much time is enough, then? Do they get all day? A week? As long as it takes?

Best teacher I had in university offered "unlimited time on tests". Their tests were hard as hell but they were scheduled after the last class of the day and ran until like 10 at night. It worked out to like 5 hours of test time even if most people could complete the test in like ~1.5-2 hours. The policy was essentially "you have until the teacher/TA needs to go home" and given everyone in university is always swampe…

This is a fantastic idea, as the exam becomes part of the teaching - if you sit there for 5 hours wishing you prepared your study better, that's an invaluable lesson.

I suspect the reason why it does not occur more commonly is simply because of the costs of running such a long exam.

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

#244

Post by nradov »

smcg wrote: post #165
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats true, but I think the blame is more on "American society" and not the kids working through the system. 50 years ago, college was cheaper. From what I understand getting jobs if you had a college degree was much easier. Social media didn't exist and people weren't connected to a universe of commentary 24/7. Kids are dealing with all this stuff, and if requesting a "disability accommodation" is helping them throu…

Failing out of college can be life-ruining. Tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of high-interest non-dischargeable debt and employment opportunities completely nuked.

Come on, let's be serious. Most Stanford undergraduate courses aren't that tough, grade inflation is rampant, and almost anyone who gets admitted can probably graduate regardless of accommodations or lack thereof. We're talking about the difference between getting an A or A- here. And Stanford has such generous financial aid that students from families earning less than $150K get free tuition so no one should be leaving with huge student debts.

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

#245

Post by RachelF »

MangoToupe wrote: post #107
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.

I suppose stanford does optimize for cheating, but this still seems excessive

Sadly, society also optimizes for cheating. Meritocracy is a myth.

In many ways Stanford is preparing students for the real world by encouraging cheating.

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

#246

Post by eszed »

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #115
SoftTalker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much time is enough, then? Do they get all day? A week? As long as it takes?

Best teacher I had in university offered "unlimited time on tests". Their tests were hard as hell but they were scheduled after the last class of the day and ran until like 10 at night. It worked out to like 5 hours of test time even if most people could complete the test in like ~1.5-2 hours. The policy was essentially "you have until the teacher/TA needs to go home" and given everyone in university is always swampe…

Yep. That's exactly what I did when I taught at the university level. Mind you, I was single then, and had no family responsibilities, and the school was small enough that I could ask for the last test slot of the day and always easily get it. But, it's excellent for everyone.

It's unfortunately not practical for every class to do when everyone's taking all of their finals in the same week. There will be inevitable scheduling collisions: hence the need for timed slots and individual exceptions at alternative times and locations. If you can think of a systemic solution to that, I'm all ears. (Yeah: get rid of final exams. In theory I like that idea, too. AI is kinda pushing educators in the opposite direction at the moment.)

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

#247

Post by canucktrash669 »

Wifey works at uni. From all her stories, sounds like a strategy I'd adopt to boost my GPA, if it existed back then.

Of course, there are also true cases where it takes 4 hours to complete a 30-minute test.

All it does is kill the GPA signal completely. One amongst many before, pure noise now.

[edit: not denying people need it. but it appears like folks that don't also use it]

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

#248

Post by paulpauper »

estimator7292 wrote: post #206
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 nearly failed high school and I flunked or dropped out of college four times. I just absolutely cannot work within the framework of modern schooling. I say this as humbly as possible, but still I'm one of the best engineers I know and working on some pretty advanced stuff. And yes, I'm rather autistic. The way my brain works is just fundamentally incompatible with school. Starting from fundamentals and building up…

I say this as humbly as possible, but still I'm one of the best engineers I know and working on some pretty advanced stuff. And yes, I'm rather autistic.

lol...there is nothing humble about this statement. >50% of people think they're above average.

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

#249

Post by db48x »

rovr138 wrote: post #64
missinglugnut wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. This is Stanford. The admissions process filtered for highly academically successful students and then 38% of them claimed a disability which impairs their academic performance. It's bullshit of the most obvious kind.

Example, do you think someone that's hard of hearing can't meet the standard for a 'highly academically successful student"? Or someone that's color blind? Or someone that's blind? Or someone in a wheelchair?

You've missed the point. How does Stanford end up with 38% of their students claiming to have a disability while other schools only have 3%? Are the other schools illegally discrimating against these students, so that their only alternative is Stanford? Or is it possible that something anomalous is happening at Stanford?

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

lostmsu wrote: post #85
shetaye wrote: post #81

Regarding Stanford specifically, I did not see the number broken down by academic or residential disability (in the underlying Atlantic article). This is relevant, because > Some students get approved for housing accommodations, including single rooms and emotional-support animals. buries the lede, at least for Stanford. It is incredibly commonplace for students to "get an OAE" (Office of Accessible Education) exclus…

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

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