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?

#711

Post by jph00 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:03 AM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #314

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 no…

Your request to read charitably is not supported by your followup of cartoonish straw man questions.

You are using rhetorical trickery to make a point rather than engaging in honest dialog.

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

#712

Post by smcg » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:03 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #244

smcg wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leav…

sorry, I often forget that I went to a university that's actually challenging, and that's not the typical case.

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

#713

Post by Terr_ » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:04 AM UTC

sfink wrote: post #673

WalterBright wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> putting water on the toothbrush before toothpaste Wat? I had no idea I had a disability!

Same here. My logic is that my toothbrush is in the same room as a device for aerosolizing fecal bacteria, which is kinda gross but also not that different from a lot of other surfaces and environments, and that it's going to collect some amount of stuff floating around. A quick rinse is going to dislodge a good fraction of what has accumulated over the course of a day. I thought I was just being logical, but apparen…

> My logic is that

I just assumed a bit of water in advance would prevent toothpaste from directly/easily adhering to the bristles, keeping more of it "in useful circulation" as it were.

> kinda gross

A few months back I needed some hydrogen peroxide, but the available bottle was more than I was likely to use before it degraded into H20... So, naturally, I started messing around looking for other applications. (It worked great on certain oily gunks that resist isopropyl.)

One weird outcome from that is I've been putting a drop on the bristles of my toothbrush, although it's more of an idle experiment to see if the foaming action dislodges visible crud (i.e. toothpaste near the base) in-between uses, as opposed to a disinfection right before use.

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

#714

Post by smcg » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:05 AM UTC

pelorat wrote: post #297

smcg wrote: post #156

I went to an elite school. I had undiagnosed depression and ADHD and I almost failed out. I don't think I needed more time on tests but I definitely needed medication and counseling. The counseling resources available at the time were not adequate and medication was difficult to get.

An "elite school" is not for everyone because everyone is different. You did not need medication and counseling. What you needed was a regular public college.

oh dang you're right. I am throwing away my degree and my meds and canceling my therapy appointments right now and applying for regular public college.

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

#715

Post by jerlam » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:07 AM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #681

Aurornis wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being diagnosed doesn't immediately mean you should be accommodated. This is the loophole. Universities aren't the ones diagnosing, they're the ones accommodating. The current meta-game is for parents and students to share notes about which doctors will diagnose easily. Between word of mouth and searches on Reddit, it's not that hard to find doctors in any metro area who will provide diagnoses and accommodation req…

Wow. Great to know we're basically raising an entire generation without any integrity. Can't wait to be in a nursing home where all the staff are trying to meta-game for lowest amount of responsibility rather than caring for the elderly. And believe me, I'm the last person to disparage the truly disabled or those down on their luck. But 38% in a developed country is just straight up insane. Not to mention that if you…

It's not 38% of the entire population/generation, it's 38% of a tiny group who have gotten into an elite, highly selective school, and have the massive resources (not just education) to do so. But as someone else said, these are probably people who are much more likely to get placed into positions of power and authority.

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

#716

Post by potato3732842 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:07 AM UTC

stanford_labrat wrote: post #696

antisthenes wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Great to know we're basically raising an entire generation without any integrity. Can't wait to be in a nursing home where all the staff are trying to meta-game for lowest amount of responsibility rather than caring for the elderly. And believe me, I'm the last person to disparage the truly disabled or those down on their luck. But 38% in a developed country is just straight up insane. Not to mention that if you…

I think about this quite a lot. I’ve come to the conclusion that in the past acting with integrity was rewarded and lacking integrity was punished. In 2025 it seems integrity is meaningless, “winning” is all that matters. Particularly, you are not punished for acting without integrity but definitely “punished” for having it.

That's what you get in a world where damn near everything is measured against some objective criteria, analyzed by a 3rd party or tracked by the government or someone at the behest thereof

None of these things measure "not an asshole". They measure results. The incentives from there are obvious.

The business owners who treats employees, customers, vendor, everyone like shit in his quest to produce the most widgets, juice every stat, is the one who gets the attention from investors and the one left alone by the government.

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

#717

Post by int_19h » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:09 AM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #518

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The direct result of this thinking is that people who need the accommodation face difficulty in getting it. You don’t have to return your shopping cart. You don’t have to donate to the collection plate. You don’t have to give a coworker recognition. But when everyone has an adversarial “get mine” attitude the systems have to be changed. Instead of assuming good intent they have to enforce it. Enforcement is very expe…

I think you're reading more into what I said than what I intended. I'm not endorsing the specific behavior, but I am pointing out that if there's a "cheating" lever anyone can pull to improve their own situation, it will get pulled if people think it's justified. There's plenty that do get pulled and plenty that don't. In the US, SNAP fraud is sufficiently close to nonexistant that you can't tell the difference in be…

Some levers are accessible to everyone, but the implied social contract is that you only pull it if you actually need it, because the system doesn't have enough resources for everyone to do it.

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

#718

Post by dctoedt » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:09 AM UTC

gverrilla wrote: post #689

dctoedt wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't praise — just an observation about how grades and class standing aren't always a good predictor of success. (I never met Joe Jamail, but by reputation there was a lot about him that I didn't especially admire.)

The problem is your identifying success with becoming a billionaire. To me, in the contrary, it's the telltale of a profoundly broken society.

I don't disagree that the existence of billionnaires is problematic (especially given the Supreme Court's abominable decision in Citizens United).

But it's beyond rational dispute that Joe Jamail was one of the most successful trial lawyers of our era.

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

#719

Post by int_19h » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:09 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #367

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…

The original article which is linked in this post goes into much better detail: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/elite-universit... Schools and universities have made accommodations a priority for decades. It started with good intentions, but parents and students alike have noticed that it's both a) easy to qualify for a disability and b) provides significant academic advantages if you do. Another big acc…

> If you don't have a disability, you aren't allowed to record lectures

Why is that gated like that?

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

#720

Post by greedo » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 1:10 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #651

bradlys wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because employers are insanely brutal in the job market due to an oversupply of qualified talent. We have more people than we have positions available to work for quality wages. This is why everything is so extreme. Students need to be in the top X percent in order to get a job that leads to a decent quality of life in the US. The problem is that every student knows this and is now competing against one…

> This country doesn’t build anything anymore and we are concentrating all the wealth and power into the hands of a few. This leaves the top 1% getting richer every year and the bottom 99% fighting over a smaller piece of the pie every year. Wouldn't say this is an accurate description of the US economy. https://realtimeinequality.org/?id=wealth&wealthend=03012023...

When I graduated HS in 1982, the top 1% had 34.7% percent of the wealth. Today, the top 1% has 71.1%. So yeah, I'd say he's spot on. There have been a few dips and valleys, but the trend line is pretty strong.