Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled? • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

internetter wrote: post #213

windows_hater_7 wrote: post #113

I go to one of those elite universities now, and I get academic accommodations. I think some of the increase is truly from greater awareness about disabilities among teachers and parents. My mom was a teacher, and she was the one who first suspected that I had dyslexia. I repeated kindergarten, and I was privileged that my parents were able to afford external educational psychology testing. Socioeconomic status is a…

Yeah I suspect that people are being over-diagnosed, but I also suspect we're catching dramatically more cases than we were previously. An overcorrection if you will.

Suspecting is reasonable. So is suspecting it is under-diagnosed.

Ranting about how all these diagnoses are fake is not.

Time may revise our opinions of the current state, but with the exception of malpracticing professionals, the diagnoses are valid for given state of medical health knowledge.

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

#312

Post by dunk010 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

throwaway314155 wrote: post #260

dunk010 wrote: post #229

The whole thrust of the article is complaining about timed tests and some kids getting more time. That's doubtless unfair if some are overclaiming, but the real solution is to not do timed tests at all - they are only serving to produce an arbitrary bell curve so that some can have higher grades and get better career opportunities. Better to not have a timer at all, and let people's actual ability shine.

Realistically there has to be _some_ time limit. No one is going to sit in a room for 10 hours while you finish your test.

Sure. I doubt that if some test at the moment takes an hour then you're getting much extra benefit at the five hour mark. The whole point of the time compression is to spread the grades out - along an axis different to "competence".

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

#313

Post by breakingrules3 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

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.

[dead]

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

#314

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

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…

Your point about Stanford having a larger-than-average proportion of 'extremely gifted' kids is reasonable. Perhaps the smartest 20% at Stanford are drawn from the smartest 0.1% nationally.

But I think you're too dismissive of this part:

  The professors Horowitz interviewed largely back up this theory. "You hear 'students with disabilities' and it's not kids in wheelchairs," one professor told Horowitch. "It's just not. It's rich kids getting extra time on tests."

You said "One person in it claims the kids aren’t really disabled because they don’t have wheelchairs" but this is a straw man. The professor did not say this.

If you read the statement charitably, the professor only pointed out two things that are probably true, which I paraphrase below:

- most people, when they hear about students with disabilities, imagine physical disabilities

- the professor has seen that a sizable proportion of students classified as disabled do not require accommodations

Now, we could argue about what are reasonable accommodations and which are not. This is where I'm interested to hear your perspective.

I assume you are in favor of these two:

- kid needs wheelchair and a ramp, so kid can attend class

- kid needs glasses, so kid can see the whiteboard

I assume you are not in favor of this one:

- kid cannot find the derivative of 2x^2, so kid is allowed to use a CAS calculator for Calculus 1 exams

What do you think about this one?

- kid can pass the English Composition 1 exam, but only if given twice as much time as other students

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

#315

Post by Aurornis » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

> one professor told Horowitch. "It's just not. It's rich kids getting extra time on tests."

This is a blunt quote, but it gets at a key part of the problem: Qualifying as having a disability can come with some material benefits in many schools.

The intentions are good: Schools are doing what they think is best to accommodate and help students with disabilities. It has been a high priority for decades. However, some of these accommodations come with academic advantages. Extra time on tests is the most common one I've seen.

Combine this with the ease of qualifying for a disability (look up the right doctor online, schedule an appointment, pay insurance copay, walk out with a note) and it became an easy, cheap, and tangible academic advantage.

One of the schools I'm familiar with switched to giving everyone the same, longer time period for taking test because it was becoming obvious that the system was being abused.

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

#316

Post by BeetleB » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:29 PM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #300

BeetleB wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made it a principle to live my life according to certain ideals - one of which is not to play these games/tricks. I'm doing better than fine. Have others who cheated done better than me? Sure - some have. Why should I care? I'm a high income earner and I don't need an even wealthier life. I am not at all an outlier. If you're amongst a crowd that won't value you for not cheating, it's on you to change the crowd…

Do you have children? I do. I still subscribe to your ideals or at least mostly follow them. But for lack of playing such games, I saw my children’s opportunities slip away.

My kids are not that old, so it hasn't come to a head yet. I presume you're talking about school performance - particularly closer to high school?

At the same time, we may need to adjust our baseline on what we call "opportunities".

I've lived in other countries, and one of the nice things about the US is how uncompetitive school is. One could (and likely still can) get into a decent "average" university without much difficulty. In other countries, not so. You could be in the top 10% academically and end up in a really low quality university. I would understand playing such games there.

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

#317

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:29 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #257

I had neither healthcare coverage in high school nor expensive college consultants. When I got to college (Cornell) all my friends told me they had plenty of extra time on the standardized exam (the SAT) by virtue of doctors letters declaring conditions requiring accommodations. I'm sure some of these were legitimate. But practically everyone I spoke to supposedly had ADHD and resulting accommodations on the SAT. I'm…

You've made a much larger claim (80-90%) than the article. That is interesting. And anedata, unless you have solid evidence of your opinion.

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

#318

Post by viraptor » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:29 PM UTC

db48x wrote: post #249

rovr138 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

While it doesn't explain the whole difference, it's not surprising that Stanford has a higher rate. First: the more demanding the environment the more likely you are to find (got example) milder ADHD to impact your life. Second: the more well off you are or more access to resources you have, the more likely you are to actually care to get diagnosed. Third: stressful environment can actually cause serious issues, suddenly. For non-education reasons I suddenly gained panic attacks while I was at uni and they took years to go away.

I'm sure there are more things like that.

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

#319

Post by OGEnthusiast » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:29 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #287

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.

I've made it a principle to live my life according to certain ideals - one of which is not to play these games/tricks. I'm doing better than fine. Have others who cheated done better than me? Sure - some have. Why should I care? I'm a high income earner and I don't need an even wealthier life. I am not at all an outlier. If you're amongst a crowd that won't value you for not cheating, it's on you to change the crowd…

If you don't mind sharing, which country do you live in? I'd imagine the ability to play fairly and still get ahead varies a lot based on local cultures/norms.

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

#320

Post by bloppe » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:29 PM UTC

I just had an edifying conversation with a recent Standford grad who was a TA, and she talked about how some huge percentage of the class has testing accommodations that allowed them to take all exams in a private room, with no supervision, and with access to their phones (and the internet).

And the professors and TAs were not even allowed to ask the students what they needed those accommodations for.