The rise of ADHD on elite campuses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid, a TJ graduate who attends an elite college without any test prep or college counseling, was diagnosed with ADHD in college. Their high IQ masked their executive function deficits all along. They never need extra time for any tests, in fact, they think so fast that they always finish tests earlier than others. They struggled with big projects or paper that need planning and execution over several weeks or months. ADHD meds helped tremendously. It’s such a relief to get diagnosed now that they understand why they are different from other students.

What would we do without amphetamines? Thank goodness for these drugs.

[Anonymous]

No offense intended, but I’m having a hard time picturing what classrooms are like if more than 40% of students are diagnosed with ADHD. How does that work in practice? Like in the middle of lab just suddenly walk away from it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid, a TJ graduate who attends an elite college without any test prep or college counseling, was diagnosed with ADHD in college. Their high IQ masked their executive function deficits all along. They never need extra time for any tests, in fact, they think so fast that they always finish tests earlier than others. They struggled with big projects or paper that need planning and execution over several weeks or months. ADHD meds helped tremendously. It’s such a relief to get diagnosed now that they understand why they are different from other students.

What would we do without amphetamines? Thank goodness for these drugs.

They struggled quietly in college for a long time until they were hospitalized for MDD. I wish we knew ADHD earlier so they didn’t have to suffer so much. Good thing is they finally got diagnosed and are on recovery with meds annd therapies . All A’s so far and well on their way to law school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid, a TJ graduate who attends an elite college without any test prep or college counseling, was diagnosed with ADHD in college. Their high IQ masked their executive function deficits all along. They never need extra time for any tests, in fact, they think so fast that they always finish tests earlier than others. They struggled with big projects or paper that need planning and execution over several weeks or months. ADHD meds helped tremendously. It’s such a relief to get diagnosed now that they understand why they are different from other students.

What would we do without amphetamines? Thank goodness for these drugs.

They struggled quietly in college for a long time until they were hospitalized for MDD. I wish we knew ADHD earlier so they didn’t have to suffer so much. Good thing is they finally got diagnosed and are on recovery with meds annd therapies . All A’s so far and well on their way to law school.

What a nice story.

[Anonymous]

Schools like Stanford reward an ADHD diagnosis, even if it's BS, which it almost always is. But getting the amphetamines is very useful for students that go to Stanford and similar. It gives them another edge. I'm surprised it's only 40 percent of Stanford students taking these drugs.

None of this has anything to do with genuine ADHD. This is about performance enhancing drugs and how to get them. And Stanford students know how to get them, clearly.

[Anonymous]

Half the posts on here are extremely offensive

[Anonymous]

The HOOPS some of you are jumping through to try and justify diagnosing people who have been objectively successful, not just academically but socially as well, with ADHD is wild.

If you have made it to high school with good grades, participation in extra-curriculars, friends, and a reasonably happy home life, without an ADHD diagnosis, YOU DO NOT HAVE ADHD. The diagnosis requires significant impairment. The person I just described does not have significant impairment.

That doesn't mean this person has no problems. They might have all kinds of issues. In fact it would be common for someone like this to have issues related to anxiety, perfectionism, fear of failure, etc. Especially in 2025 where expectations are so sky high for kids, especially UMC and wealthy kids with high achieving parents. If the person I just described is struggling with their mental healthy, I strongly support giving them mental healthcare. I would also suggest that their family and their school consider if the expectations place on these kids are not reasonable and need to be adjusted, if we need to make more room for kids to fail safely in adolescence so that the fear of rUiNiNg tHeIr LiVes with a B+ or a less then stellar standardized test score doesn't loom over their heads like a guillotine. But that's not ADHD.

Instead, we're giving these kids ADHD diagnoses, medicating them, giving them special accommodations, and convincing them that they have special neurodivergence that explains their mental health issues (which are actually caused by a lifestyle that has been imposed on them by a hyper-competitive culture and their own parents). This is a recipe for disaster folks. It's not merely that it's unfair to other students or results in over diagnosis of a real neurological issue, it's that it's doubling down on the very thing that is causing these kids to struggle in the first place. The "noise" in these kids heads that the ADHD meds silence? It's stress, folks.

But of course, if you just get an ADHD diagnosis and some meds, your kid can push through and nab that Ivy acceptance, that med school acceptance, that super elite internship, that scholarship. I'm sure the next brass ring will solve everything right? Downshifting expectations and telling kids to simply DO LESS isn't an option. That would be admitting defeat, and everyone knows you've got to compete, compete, compete. So you've got ADHD, and you've got ADHD, and you've got ADHD!! Everyone's got ADHD!! No one ask any questions! It's FINE!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Half the posts on here are extremely offensive

Only to people who are stretching the definition of ADHD to gain access to legal methamphetamines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No offense intended, but I’m having a hard time picturing what classrooms are like if more than 40% of students are diagnosed with ADHD. How does that work in practice? Like in the middle of lab just suddenly walk away from it?

In reality almost none of these kids have ADHD. They have anxiety and fear of failure. So the classrooms are just full of intense, high achieving kids who blame any setback or weakness on ADHD. It's like a mass delusion. The professors and instructors know it's all BS, but they can't say anything because these kids have purchased the label of "disabled" and anyone who suggests otherwise will be attacked as ablist. It's a neat trick, yes?

[Anonymous]

It's not anxiety or fear of failure. They just like the feeling of being on meth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Half the posts on here are extremely offensive

Only to people who are stretching the definition of ADHD to gain access to legal methamphetamines.

Your assumptions are offensive to those with ADHD

[Anonymous]

As the parent of a student with true and severe ADHD, diagnosed in first grade, this bothers me. People may question his legitimate needs because of so many people taking advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC was diagnosed with ADHD in college and received accommodation. Not surprising, since it runs in the family. Prior to diagnosis, National Merit Finalist and 1,580 SAT, obviously without accommodation. Full merit tuition ride at a T-20. All A in HS and still all A in college. I understand OP's skepticism, but perhaps should keep an open mind since every kid is different.

DC got that far without it: why is the accommodation necessary now?

Some of my favorite alternate version of this include:
Your child had cancer but hadn’t died before the cancer was diagnosed, why treat it now?

Or

Your kid failed the driving vision test? They’ve never needed glasses before, why get them now? They could just ride the bus everywhere instead.

That is a really dumb analogy. ADHD is not like cancer or low vision. If it exists, you cannot get through a demanding high school with all As, top scores, and admission to an elite university.

This is not true. Plenty of now adults, including my husband (TJ and HYP grad) did this without realizing they had ADHD because it was not well understood when they were kids.

+1 A highly intelligent person not diagnosed until adulthood can tell PP that you will never fully appreciate the relief the diagnosis brings, especially if medication helps. The level of extra mental work, work arounds, self reminders, lack of sleep to keep up with your own brain, stuggle to turn off your brain, extra energy used to keep focused or break hyperfocus, fighting the anxiety of not remembering people's names and being late, etc. that ADHD causes even in (maybe expecially in) extremly intelligent people is exhausting and can cause huge levels of anxiety. They are always working twice as hard as everyone else because of the effort to keep ADHD in check.

PP, the error you are making here is in thinking accommodations are causing the achievement -- no, the kid's intelligence is what it is.

A person with ADHD is trying to do what everyone else is doing with the intelligence they have, but also has a disability unrleated to their intelligence. While they are sitting in class or the board room or a court room with everyone else, they are simultaneously using a part of the brain and mental energy to:
- lift a heavy curtain that keeps unexpectedly dropping in front of their eyes,
- to try to adjust the volume in invisible earphones operated by invisible gremlins who really don't care,
- to constantly look at and focus on external clocks because the internal one sometimes runs fast and sometimes runs slow but never is the same as the external one,
- shoo away crowds of gnats flying around their brains shouting interesting but irrelevant factiods at them,
- tell the professor at the core of their brain that, while fascinating, now really isn't the time to solve the major world problem they work at endlesslly, while hoping and praying it isn't true that if they don't do it right now, it will be lost forever;
- and resist the impossible urge to daydrem about whatever floats into their conscience at any given moment unbeckoned.

It is a constant noise, like tinitius of the brain. People are able to stem this tide at varying degrees at at varying costs to their energy and metal well being. Some of us manage to achieve in spite of this, but at a price - an unnecessary price, we now know.

Accommodations and medication is about that huge added burden on the brain and avoiding that extra price on the head; it's about making up for or stopping all the stuff happening in the brain that other people either don't have at all or can turn off and on at will.

Medication can calm a lot of it and give you extra control. It can ease the anxiety it all causes too. This is what people diagnosed as adults discover.

Extra time for kids who are still trying to develop the copes and work arounds allows them to finish a test even though they involuntarily spent 20 or 30 minutes of the allotted time lifting the curtian, swatting the gnats or puzzling about Schroedinger's cat when they were supposed to be reading a poassage of poetry on the SAT test. It alleviates the anxiety of knowing they are about to be put on an external clock, when they have yet to devolp the skills to work around their broken internal clock. The net result is simply the ability to show what they know without the added suffering and unneeded extra mental strain caused by a disability.

Co-signing! My freshman was diagnosed in third grade after his AAP teacher noticed issues. He already had existing EF, speech apraxia and dysgraphia diagnoses so the Inattentive ADD was not a surprise for us.

He’s been seen by dev peds since he was a toddler so we always had trusted experts to evaluate and treat him. Having a diagnosis allowed us to find the right medical protocol including meds to ensure his success.

He’s now a NMF on a full ride with accommodations at his school. He doesn’t always use them but it’s nice to have them for the times he does need them (exams vs essays or projects)

[Anonymous]

Is there any downside to getting diagnosed with ADHD? We can get one online for $400.

[Anonymous]

Why should these newly diagnosed ADHD high school and college kids get drugs and more test time? If the point is to level the playing field, don’t the drugs do that? Giving extra time too is a double advantage. Seems like it should be one or the other, at most.