Accommodation Nation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will no longer subscribe to the Atlantic or even add traffic to their site, but I can imagine what the rest of the article is like. You know what the solution is to this 'problem'? Give everyone extra time - it is ridiculous, particularly at the college level, to think one person is smarter or better educated or better prepared because it takes them less time to solve a problem or write an essay than the next person.

I would never want to hire anyone who has been given extra time to do assignments all their lives. That's just not the way the world works. But if you want your kid unprepared for real life, go for it.

And that's exactly why it's not disclosed, and you, as an employer, will never know who did or did not get extended time.

So are you saying they can actually manage deadlines suddenly when they start working? Why weren't they doing that before if they can actually do it?

Exactly! This is the type of thing that needs to be taught. But these kids were instead taught not to learn the lesson. Please tell me what employers want employees who need extra time to complete tasks. They don't exist, and you denied your kids part of the education they were supposed to receive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40% Stanford students have accommendations. This is not normal.

A good chunk of those are not academic accommodations, but are allergy/medical/physical accommodations. Like private rooms, ESAs, waivers allowing otherwise-banned appliances for medical needs, etc.

Still, you don't find it unusual that almost 1/2 the students at a large university have a disability?

No. I think it’s great that schools are finally making learning more accessible to people who are still intelligent and valuable despite having a chronic illness, limited mobility, dyslexia, or whatever else.

Me too, and I'd like to add that for most careers, book smarts only get you so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will no longer subscribe to the Atlantic or even add traffic to their site, but I can imagine what the rest of the article is like. You know what the solution is to this 'problem'? Give everyone extra time - it is ridiculous, particularly at the college level, to think one person is smarter or better educated or better prepared because it takes them less time to solve a problem or write an essay than the next person.

I would never want to hire anyone who has been given extra time to do assignments all their lives. That's just not the way the world works. But if you want your kid unprepared for real life, go for it.

And that's exactly why it's not disclosed, and you, as an employer, will never know who did or did not get extended time.

So are you saying they can actually manage deadlines suddenly when they start working? Why weren't they doing that before if they can actually do it?

It’s almost like 45 minute, timed, closed book exams don’t remotely reflect the vast majority of working environments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40% Stanford students have accommendations. This is not normal.

A good chunk of those are not academic accommodations, but are allergy/medical/physical accommodations. Like private rooms, ESAs, waivers allowing otherwise-banned appliances for medical needs, etc.

Still, you don't find it unusual that almost 1/2 the students at a large university have a disability?

No. I think it’s great that schools are finally making learning more accessible to people who are still intelligent and valuable despite having a chronic illness, limited mobility, dyslexia, or whatever else.

Me too, and I'd like to add that for most careers, book smarts only get you so far.

Right, and the other part is you actually need to use your book smarts and be functional and productive at work; meet deadlines, multitask, stay focused amid multiple distractions and problems that come up. Work isn’t going to give the accommodations your 503 plan gave you for your adhd and anxiety.

[Anonymous]

All the families I know who go to the most in-demand privates here in DC have kids with accommodation. For anxiety. GMAFB.

But it's just one of many many ways that the wealthy game the education system to protect their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My freshman Ivy child has two roommates and both have extra time. They each are given 2-3 days to take exams that the rest of the kids are given 2-3 hours to complete. Both attended private schools. Both are very bright and very wealthy. Both have the extra time for "anxiety."

I'd be pissed if I was a professor or a person who had a kid with dyslexia or significant ADHD or a learning difference. It's apparently a huge difficulty to get these exams proctored, especially if the student also needs a quiet study pod because there are not enough pods for the onslaught of students who now require them.

I have no idea how this generation of kids will cope in jobs with deadlines and noise and without parents to run interference. But I guess the workforce will adapt. Maybe everyone will get a week and a soundproof pod to write an email.

Half my kids’ sports team has accommodations for ADD/ADHD; all of them are wealthy and at private schools or high performing publics. Before they went on medication none of them were having significant academic or behavior problems, but now they get extra time on school work and if they do misbehave their parents immediately point to the ADD/ADHD as an excuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My freshman Ivy child has two roommates and both have extra time. They each are given 2-3 days to take exams that the rest of the kids are given 2-3 hours to complete. Both attended private schools. Both are very bright and very wealthy. Both have the extra time for "anxiety."

I'd be pissed if I was a professor or a person who had a kid with dyslexia or significant ADHD or a learning difference. It's apparently a huge difficulty to get these exams proctored, especially if the student also needs a quiet study pod because there are not enough pods for the onslaught of students who now require them.

I have no idea how this generation of kids will cope in jobs with deadlines and noise and without parents to run interference. But I guess the workforce will adapt. Maybe everyone will get a week and a soundproof pod to write an email.

Half my kids’ sports team has accommodations for ADD/ADHD; all of them are wealthy and at private schools or high performing publics. Before they went on medication none of them were having significant academic or behavior problems, but now they get extra time on school work and if they do misbehave their parents immediately point to the ADD/ADHD as an excuse.

I see this at my DC's private school. So many kids in his grade have accomodations and tutors for almost all subjects to maintain their almost perfect GPAs. Its pretty disgusting because tutors help write papers while my kid has to compete with these tutor written papers. When I see resumes from kids from top schools I no longer assume they are smart.

[Anonymous]

"Collar, the University of Chicago physics professor, said that part of what his exams are designed to assess is the ability to solve problems in a certain amount of time. But now many of his students are in a separate room, with time and a half or even double the allotted time to complete the test. “I feel for the students who are not taking advantage of this,” he told me. “We have a two-speed student population.”

[Anonymous]

I've seen this play out with 3 kids who went through a local top private school. The third is currently a senior.

The school is very rigorous: lots of homework, grade deflation.

The top 20% of the class doesn't have accommodations. They are really, really bright kids. They can keep up with the work, even when it gets more challenging and despite taking the most rigorous classes.

The kids beneath this start to struggle in high school, especially in 10th grade and up. They can't keep up with the top achievers, they start getting more B+s, they drown under the homework, they're not happy. Then BAM: The college admissions process starts and their parents have their first look at what their kid's college prospects are, given their grades. Panic ensues and these kids get taken to a psychologist for an evaluation and end up with extra time for "anxiety." And yes, they are genuinely anxious because they're way in over the heads at school and have parents who have unrealistic expectations. And COLLEGE STRESS LOOMS.

Some of this cohort will end up getting extra time with the College Board for the SAT, etc. Some will not. All will try.

However, in the end, the top 20% will get the Ivy spots and this next cohort will end up at schools in the next few deciles because ultimately, all this intervention in 10th or 11th grade is too little, too late.

I have seen this exact process happen with 3 kids over the span of 8 years. Probably a dozen kids each time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen this play out with 3 kids who went through a local top private school. The third is currently a senior.

The school is very rigorous: lots of homework, grade deflation.

The top 20% of the class doesn't have accommodations. They are really, really bright kids. They can keep up with the work, even when it gets more challenging and despite taking the most rigorous classes.

The kids beneath this start to struggle in high school, especially in 10th grade and up. They can't keep up with the top achievers, they start getting more B+s, they drown under the homework, they're not happy. Then BAM: The college admissions process starts and their parents have their first look at what their kid's college prospects are, given their grades. Panic ensues and these kids get taken to a psychologist for an evaluation and end up with extra time for "anxiety." And yes, they are genuinely anxious because they're way in over the heads at school and have parents who have unrealistic expectations. And COLLEGE STRESS LOOMS.

Some of this cohort will end up getting extra time with the College Board for the SAT, etc. Some will not. All will try.

However, in the end, the top 20% will get the Ivy spots and this next cohort will end up at schools in the next few deciles because ultimately, all this intervention in 10th or 11th grade is too little, too late.

I have seen this exact process happen with 3 kids over the span of 8 years. Probably a dozen kids each time.

I've seen this happen a lot too, especially in wealthy families, however I disagree that kids with accommodations are somehow outside of the top 20%. When you see Stanford reporting 38% with disabilities, you know a fair number of them had extra time on their tests and were awarded with admission to Stanford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen this play out with 3 kids who went through a local top private school. The third is currently a senior.

The school is very rigorous: lots of homework, grade deflation.

The top 20% of the class doesn't have accommodations. They are really, really bright kids. They can keep up with the work, even when it gets more challenging and despite taking the most rigorous classes.

The kids beneath this start to struggle in high school, especially in 10th grade and up. They can't keep up with the top achievers, they start getting more B+s, they drown under the homework, they're not happy. Then BAM: The college admissions process starts and their parents have their first look at what their kid's college prospects are, given their grades. Panic ensues and these kids get taken to a psychologist for an evaluation and end up with extra time for "anxiety." And yes, they are genuinely anxious because they're way in over the heads at school and have parents who have unrealistic expectations. And COLLEGE STRESS LOOMS.

Some of this cohort will end up getting extra time with the College Board for the SAT, etc. Some will not. All will try.

However, in the end, the top 20% will get the Ivy spots and this next cohort will end up at schools in the next few deciles because ultimately, all this intervention in 10th or 11th grade is too little, too late.

I have seen this exact process happen with 3 kids over the span of 8 years. Probably a dozen kids each time.

I've seen this happen a lot too, especially in wealthy families, however I disagree that kids with accommodations are somehow outside of the top 20%. When you see Stanford reporting 38% with disabilities, you know a fair number of them had extra time on their tests and were awarded with admission to Stanford.

I agree. I see that some in top 20% at our private also have accomodations.

[Anonymous]

The problem with accommodations becoming so widespread is that everyone starts to feel like a sucker if they *don't* have an accommodation. It's like an arms race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen this play out with 3 kids who went through a local top private school. The third is currently a senior.

The school is very rigorous: lots of homework, grade deflation.

The top 20% of the class doesn't have accommodations. They are really, really bright kids. They can keep up with the work, even when it gets more challenging and despite taking the most rigorous classes.

The kids beneath this start to struggle in high school, especially in 10th grade and up. They can't keep up with the top achievers, they start getting more B+s, they drown under the homework, they're not happy. Then BAM: The college admissions process starts and their parents have their first look at what their kid's college prospects are, given their grades. Panic ensues and these kids get taken to a psychologist for an evaluation and end up with extra time for "anxiety." And yes, they are genuinely anxious because they're way in over the heads at school and have parents who have unrealistic expectations. And COLLEGE STRESS LOOMS.

Some of this cohort will end up getting extra time with the College Board for the SAT, etc. Some will not. All will try.

However, in the end, the top 20% will get the Ivy spots and this next cohort will end up at schools in the next few deciles because ultimately, all this intervention in 10th or 11th grade is too little, too late.

I have seen this exact process happen with 3 kids over the span of 8 years. Probably a dozen kids each time.

I've seen this happen a lot too, especially in wealthy families, however I disagree that kids with accommodations are somehow outside of the top 20%. When you see Stanford reporting 38% with disabilities, you know a fair number of them had extra time on their tests and were awarded with admission to Stanford.

Yeah, the PP’s anecdote is off base. Ivy schools and top 10 schools, per the article, are reporting anywhere from 20-40% of their student body have accommodations for “disabilities” so obviously they are getting in

[Anonymous]

I wonder next time when a parent brags about their kids' SAT scores, would they mention accommodation?

My supersmart kid got 1570+ in one sitting with extended accommodations!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen this play out with 3 kids who went through a local top private school. The third is currently a senior.

The school is very rigorous: lots of homework, grade deflation.

The top 20% of the class doesn't have accommodations. They are really, really bright kids. They can keep up with the work, even when it gets more challenging and despite taking the most rigorous classes.

The kids beneath this start to struggle in high school, especially in 10th grade and up. They can't keep up with the top achievers, they start getting more B+s, they drown under the homework, they're not happy. Then BAM: The college admissions process starts and their parents have their first look at what their kid's college prospects are, given their grades. Panic ensues and these kids get taken to a psychologist for an evaluation and end up with extra time for "anxiety." And yes, they are genuinely anxious because they're way in over the heads at school and have parents who have unrealistic expectations. And COLLEGE STRESS LOOMS.

Some of this cohort will end up getting extra time with the College Board for the SAT, etc. Some will not. All will try.

However, in the end, the top 20% will get the Ivy spots and this next cohort will end up at schools in the next few deciles because ultimately, all this intervention in 10th or 11th grade is too little, too late.

I have seen this exact process happen with 3 kids over the span of 8 years. Probably a dozen kids each time.

I've seen this happen a lot too, especially in wealthy families, however I disagree that kids with accommodations are somehow outside of the top 20%. When you see Stanford reporting 38% with disabilities, you know a fair number of them had extra time on their tests and were awarded with admission to Stanford.

Yeah, the PP’s anecdote is off base. Ivy schools and top 10 schools, per the article, are reporting anywhere from 20-40% of their student body have accommodations for “disabilities” so obviously they are getting in

Students get those order to get AC or their own rooms once they are there. My son’s dorm mate wanted a single sophomore year and dad is a doctor…bingo.