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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?

#721

Post by bananalychee »

novemp wrote: post #613
bananalychee wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have firsthand experience being diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD within about half an hour of self-reporting mild symptoms with a physician remotely, for one, so perhaps I'm more of an authority on this subject than most commenters here. I suppose it would be equally trivial to seek an ASD diagnosis, since Asperger's is now lumped in with autism and classified as a disability despite not being one.

> I have firsthand experience being diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD within about half an hour of self-reporting mild symptoms with a physician remotely Can confirm; I was your physician. (Anyone can say anything online!)

That's awfully convenient isn't it. The 38% of Stanford students claiming to be disabled must have a good reason for it while those of us who understand how easy it is to be diagnosed with a so-called "disability" must be lying. Do you honestly believe that roughly half of the people you meet need special accommodations to study and work?

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

#722

Post by int_19h »

inglor_cz wrote: post #209
margalabargala wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This attitude was one of the things that collapsed the former Eastern Bloc. "He who does not steal is stealing from his own family."

And when everybody else does it (and all assume that everybody does), it really ends up being true. That's why it's so hard to get out of this hole - telling people to "start with yourself" won't cut it, they need to see that others are doing the same as well rather than trying to benefit from the opportunity.

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

#723

Post by deaux »

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...

That link supports the thesis if everything?

Top 0.01%, +9.1%

Top 0.1%, +13.9%

Top 1%, +15.2%

Top 10%, +6.1%

Middle 40%, -6%

Bottom 50%, -0.1%

This supports exactly GP's two statements:

> we are concentrating all the wealth and power into the hands of a few.

Correct, their slice of the pie is growing, the bottom 90%'s is shrinking

> This leaves the top 1% getting richer every year and the bottom 99% fighting over a smaller piece of the pie every year.

Also correct, the biggest growth of share being in the top 1% segment.

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

#724

Post by astrange »

greedo wrote: post #720
astrange wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That is not what that chart shows. It shows top 1% was 25% in 1982 and 35-37% now. Mostly related to the Great Recession.

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

#725

Post by potato3732842 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #593
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…

Is this better or worse than nepo babies, white privilege or other normal social status benefits for college?

Being born to rich white people doesn't provide positive reinforcement for sleazy behavior at an age where people are likely to take the lesson seriously.

So yeah, I'll take nepo babies and racism over this any day;

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

#726

Post by godelski »

kenjackson wrote: post #659
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean.. if you can finish a task for a client in a day, and someone else needs two days, isn't that a huge difference? Or to turn it around, if someone does 10%, 20%, 50% more in the same time period, isn't that significant? I mean.. we are comparing students abilities here, and doing stuff fast is one of those abilities. Even potato peelers in a restaurant are valued more if they're faster, why not programmers too?…

"I mean.. if you can finish a task for a client in a day, and someone else needs two days, isn't that a huge difference?" I've never seen that come down to processing speed. Even as a programmer -- I can program probably 10x faster than most of my peers in straight programming contest style programs. But in terms of actual real work -- I'm probably slightly faster. But my value is really I spend a lot of time really…

I'm always surprised by comments like the gp's. Even working on different types of programming jobs I would be surprised if the majority of time is spent on actually writing lines. The majority of my time is spent on understanding the codebase and how the new requirements best fit in there. I do see people jumping in straight to /a/ solution, but every time I've seen that happen it is hacky and ends up creating more problems than solutions.

I'm also surprised at how common it is for people to openly discuss how irrelevant leetcode is to the actual work on the job but how it is still the status quo. On one hand we like to claim that an academic education is not beneficial but in the other hand use it as the main testing method.

I think why I'm most surprised is we, more than most other jobs, have a publicly visible "proof of competence." Most of us have git repos that are publicly available! I can totally understand that this isn't universal, but in very few industries is there such a publicly visible record of work. Who else has that? Artists? I'm not sure why this isn't more heavily weighted than these weird code tests that we've developed a secondary market to help people optimize for. It feels like a huge waste of money and time.

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

#727

Post by deaux »

delichon wrote: post #133
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A culture that honored truth telling and integrity. Was that long ago or far away?

No, just one of the 99% of universities in this world where people aren't en masse claiming to have disabilities for selfish gain. Neither long ago - this is as of 2025 - nor particularly far away.

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

#729

Post by Phithagoras »

jareds wrote: post #465
Phithagoras wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a high stakes, challenging environment, every human weakness possible becomes a huge, career impeding liability. Very few people are truly all-around talented. If you are a Stanford level scientist, it doesn't take a lot of anxiety to make it difficult to compete with other Stanford level scientists who don't have any anxiety. Without accommodations, you could still be a very successful scientist after going to a…

Why are frequent attendance exemptions granted? I'm totally blind and when I went to college my lack of attendance had nothing to do with the fact that I was blind and everything to do with the fact that I made poor choices like other college students. If I didn't have the mobility skills to get to class then I shouldn't have been granted an exception, I should have been told to get better mobility skills before goin…

My understanding is that attendance exemptions are mostly to allow a student to regularly see healthcare professionals (ie weekly respiratory therapist visits) without suffering the wrath of a prof who feels that anyone missing more than 2 lectures deserves to auto-fail a course.

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

#730

Post by deaux »

Supermancho wrote: post #239
donbox wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please... enough with the lazy stereotypes

Google: China Cheating. Stereotype or not, it's a well documented characteristic of some social systems. This isn't to imply a moralist view. This cultural phenomena is a recognized pattern of behavior across industries, as well as the education system. It's viciously pragmatic. A key part of their rapid industrialization and digital transition. It's not surprising, given the success, nor is it necessary to pretend o…

It's just irrelevant and ignorant to bring up in the context of this article. These things aren't correlated. I can name countries where academic fraud (fake papers, fake data) is much more rampant than the US, yet faking a disability to get a single dorm room is unthinkable. You're oversimplifying things and making connections that aren't there.
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