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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?

#351
post #93

Why is it so hard to believe that disabled people can be accepted into "elite" universities? I think the article author, and many of the commenters here, are conflating "normalised behaviours" with "intelligence". As a society we have normalised pushing students into being able to complete assessments within an allotted time frame, even though the time it takes to finish an assessment isn't a perfect measure of one's…

> Why is it so hard to believe that disabled people can be accepted into "elite" universities? ?? many people would think there is something wrong with the definition of disabled if 38% of the population is disabled: more likely to be mislabeled. now, if 38% of the population is not disabled, but 38% of elite universities is, that is also something of note... is how the headline/article should be read. then, if you l…

The CDC reports that 1 in 4 Americans are disabled. Sure 38% is higher than 25%, but the 38% number is the worst case scenario, two of the other universities cited only had 20% of students who were disabled, below the CDC number.

> one side campaigns by advocating more social spending

Ironically, having more social spending on 4-year universities would actually alleviate this problem if we are following the author's logic. If students weren't the ones footing the bill for their education, there would be less incentive for them to take measures to try and circumvent a system that penalizes low-performance (doubly-so because you both get a bad grade and you still have to pay back the money).

I read the headline/article exactly the way it was supposed to be interpreted. I'm also not reading that far into it, the byline literally states, "If you get into an elite college, you probably don't have a learning disability", which again, is simply not true and is ableist. Disabled people are not incapable of performing certain tasks, but they are hindered, which is why it's called a disability and not an inability.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means that the action we should take in response to this article is "building more dorms with singles" rather than "we need to rethink the way that we are making accommodations for disabilities in educational contexts". That seems like an important distinction, and makes the rest of the article (which focuses on educational accommodations) look mistaken.

I worked in residential life while in college and can tell you that placing freshmen in singles is a horrible idea. It leads to isolation and lets mental health issues fester. Some need it but you do not want to place anyone who doesn’t into a room alone especially in their first year.

I agree in that freshmen should get the "experience" at least once. However, the way Stanford has arranged housing has meant that a good number of students will not live in a single for any of their 4 years.

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

#353
post #139
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

American society is high trust and diverse. Lots of interesting charts here: https://ourworldindata.org/trust

I just bumped into the idea of "demographic diversity" versus "moral diversity" [1].

Demographic diversity speaks to the differences in sex, race, sexual orientation, etc. A nation of immigrants, for example.

Moral diversity speaks to the differences in culture, the rules a society follows. Erosion of those rules is what leads to a low trust society.

I thought this was a really interesting distinction to make.

It seems that the U.S. is not as high trust as it was 75+ years ago. The book I read used the example of neighbors disciplining children, which was more common in U.S. culture 75+ years ago. Today you'd worry about a parent calling the police for that. In general the idea of character has replaced with personality. Moral diversity. Live and let live.

But on the other hand 75+ years ago women and minorities were more limited. We now have more demographic diversity. Which is a good thing.

I would like to think that demographic diversity and a high trust society aren't mutually exclusive. Conflating the two doesn't help.

[1] The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt, Chapter 8, The Felicity of Virtue

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

#354
post #154
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…

Have you tried Adderall? It gives extreme competitive edge. Just to get legal and easy access to performance-enhancing drugs in elite educational (aka competitive) setting it makes sense to get "disability". And given how loosely these conditions are defined, it's not even cheating in the true sense of the word.

> Have you tried Adderall? It gives extreme competitive edge.

Before readers rush out to acquire Adderall, note that "trying" it does not give an accurate picture of what it's like to take it long-term. It has a high discontinuation rate because people read comments like this online or borrow a dose from their friend and think they're going to be running around like Bradley Cooper in Limitless for the rest of their career.

A new patient who tries Adderall will feel a sense of euphoria, energy, and motivation that is temporary. This effect does not last. This is why the Reddit ADHD forums are full of people posting "I just took my first dose and I'm so happy I could cry" followed a few weeks later by "Why did my Adderall stop working?". The focus part is still mostly working, but no drug is going to make you feel happy, energized, and euphoric for very long.

> Just to get legal and easy access to performance-enhancing drugs in elite educational (aka competitive) setting it makes sense to get "disability".

You're confusing two different things. Registering with the school's disability office is orthogonal to getting a prescription for anything.

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

#355
post #335
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…

They lead with the headline that most of these students have a mental health disability - particularly ADHD. Is it surprising that legalized Amphetamines drive teenagers to higher performance for a short period in their lives? Adderall and other amphetamines only have problems with long term usage. It should be expected that some portion of the teenage population sees a net-benefit from Amphetamines for the duration…

Wow that's interesting! Could you share your sources?

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

#356
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?

Cheating is the malicious interpretation, same way steroids are considered cheating in other competitions. (college admission is a competition, there are fixed number of seats and you cheating to get a seat hurts someone else.)

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

#357

Accommodating for disability is cheesing the test score. Cheesing a test score is cheesing the metric. Cheesing the metric is always some form of lying, usually to yourself. - You're lying to yourself about how good of a fit your are for the program. - The professor/administration is getting inaccurate data about the teaching efficacy. If you want to know if you can be a civil engineer despite your disability, the la…

You show a touching level of confidence in the idea that test scores are a useful metric of anything anybody cares about... especially after they're Goodharted into oblivion. Maybe the extreme ends of the ranges are, if you compensate for noise sources. And giving somebody more time on the test may indeed be compensating for a noise source.

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

#358
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lead with the headline that most of these students have a mental health disability - particularly ADHD. Is it surprising that legalized Amphetamines drive teenagers to higher performance for a short period in their lives? Adderall and other amphetamines only have problems with long term usage. It should be expected that some portion of the teenage population sees a net-benefit from Amphetamines for the duration…

Wow that's interesting! Could you share your sources?

I’m not sure what you mean by “interesting”, can you please explain, ideally by citing a few reputable dictionaries?

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

#359

That doesn't seem outrageously high for a high cap school? 15-20% of the world is estimated to have a disability. So Stanford population is high, but approximately double the average of a random global population sample. Now, think about the selection pressures Stanford applies. Stanford selects students who are fighting for top academic honors. Those students are dealing with brutal competition, and likely see their…

> 15-20% of the world is estimated to have a disability. Not a chance in hell.

If you have better data, I'm sure the world would love to have it. The world, however, seems to agree the number is somewhere around 15-20%.

World Health Organization: 16%

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-...

UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: 15%

https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/f...

CDC: 25% of Americans

https://www.cdc.gov/disability-and-health/articles-documents...

ROD Group: 22%

https://www.rod-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/The-Glo...

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

#360
post #93

Why is it so hard to believe that disabled people can be accepted into "elite" universities? I think the article author, and many of the commenters here, are conflating "normalised behaviours" with "intelligence". As a society we have normalised pushing students into being able to complete assessments within an allotted time frame, even though the time it takes to finish an assessment isn't a perfect measure of one's…

But this does not explain the recent surge of disabilities. No one says disabled people cannot attend elite universities.
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