Wall Street Journal on rampant growth in percentage of college students with “disabilities”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

Right. All those kids who got admitted to Pomona suddenly developed debilitating learning disabilities upon matriculation ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

Right. All those kids who got admitted to Pomona suddenly developed debilitating learning disabilities upon matriculation ...

There are a lot of horrible people in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

Right. All those kids who got admitted to Pomona suddenly developed debilitating learning disabilities upon matriculation ...

There are a lot of horrible people in this thread.

Ablism. ... the last acceptible form of prejudism.

[Anonymous]

My DS is a rising college freshman. I did not read this whole thread but he is asking for accommodations that he has in HS. He has dygraphia and needs to use a keyboard and get copies of notes. Writing is a real problem for him without it. He does not get extra time. Not all accommodations involve extra time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

No, they get "diagnosed" when it gets hard, and they want an easy way out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

You need to get out more and apply some critical thinking. These so called horrible people are telling you the reality. Go check out the college board study that showed a HUGE jump in time accomodations once they could not mark on the test that extra time was given. This is why there is an increase in college. These wealthy parents do not think twice about spending thousands on a diagnosis to get extra time for their kids: they are already spending over $40 k for private school tuition, thousands more on prep! In fact the doctor diagnosis would be the cheapest cost. It is tha easy to get the diagnosis. If you don’t think it is easy to get that dr diagnosis, you definitely don’t know very wealthy people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

No, they get "diagnosed" when it gets hard, and they want an easy way out of it.

DP... I think this happens too, but to what degree, it's hard to tell.

[Anonymous]

As the dyslexic mother of a dyslexic child, it is awful to read what you all think of kids with accommodations. My kid is so ashamed already by his accommodations that he often refuses to use them. He has an IQ of 130 but struggles to pass classes. When you have a kid like mine it becomes blindingly obvious that our educational system isn’t serving our kids well - the typical kids or mine. Why should all school work reward working memory and processing speed and ignore problem solving? It’s wacky. Just like I did, my kid is going to struggle to get through school, but will flourish in a career. And for the person wondering how those stupid dyslexics could have made it into Pomona...a characteristic of dyslexia is high intelligence and problem solving, but a different brain wiring that also makes reading difficult to learn and usually comes with working memory deficits. Many of us dyslexics make it to prestigious colleges by working twice as hard as everyone else. I did.

[Anonymous]

You are exactly right.

The other responders are in fact ignorant, and lucky that they have not had to learn the hard way that these disabilities are real (despite the fact that they are invisible).

Careful snarky posters, karma might be real...

[Anonymous]

+1 for the last two posters.

Also, I agree: lots of horrible, inexperienced, uninformed, ignorant people on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the dyslexic mother of a dyslexic child, it is awful to read what you all think of kids with accommodations. My kid is so ashamed already by his accommodations that he often refuses to use them. He has an IQ of 130 but struggles to pass classes. When you have a kid like mine it becomes blindingly obvious that our educational system isn’t serving our kids well - the typical kids or mine. Why should all school work reward working memory and processing speed and ignore problem solving? It’s wacky. Just like I did, my kid is going to struggle to get through school, but will flourish in a career. And for the person wondering how those stupid dyslexics could have made it into Pomona...a characteristic of dyslexia is high intelligence and problem solving, but a different brain wiring that also makes reading difficult to learn and usually comes with working memory deficits. Many of us dyslexics make it to prestigious colleges by working twice as hard as everyone else. I did.

Second this.
However, there are also rich kids who game the system. It’s not all one reason. Huge work load in top high schools and suddenly there’s a need for adhd meds to work late and accommodations for testing.

[Anonymous]

Many of the more competitive companies and organizations test as part of their hiring process. They have their own agenda (CIA, Foreign Service Big 4 firms, MBB firms, Google etc.). If the disability is really an issue they will be discovered eventually so relax people. And if they do well - which many will- and thrive in their dream jobs good for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of points: Serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder usually present themselves for the first time when people are 18-22. So it is possible that quite a few students who were "normal" in high school will suddenly need mental health care and accommodation in college. Secondly students who suffer from anxiety and depression can suddenly get worse when they are away from their support system. I suffered from clinical depression my freshman year, and needed more time to do my school work, but got better after I found the correct medication. So if you think mental health issues are scams to get better grades, thank your lucky stars you don't know otherwise.

Yes!
And the reason so many high school students get diagnosed with ADHD is because often kids can get by until the demands increase and then the challenges are exposed.
There are a lot of horrible people on this thread.

Right. All those kids who got admitted to Pomona suddenly developed debilitating learning disabilities upon matriculation ...

I think you're misreading many of the comments. What explains the rampant growth? That's the shocking part -- how did suddenly between 2014 and now (less than 4 years) Pomona go from 5% disabled to over 20%. Much of it because parents seeking an edge, i.e more time on tests, etc.

There are a lot of horrible people in this thread.

[Anonymous]

I don't think a true disability can be cured by taking a kitty to school.

[Anonymous]

Coming from Asia to pursue grad school in the US less than five years ago, I was surprised to learn that college students here want to get themselves labeled as disabled. It's such a stigma in Asia that many parents refuse to pursue alternative education for their special-needs children even though there is genuine need. But the article is right about anything and everything being subsumed under the label disability and educators aren't allowed to question if a student is genuine. I think this reflects poorly on American youth because if they can't handle college, they can't handle post-college life.