So what’s the hitch? What does it buy you to get labeled “disabled”?
“As many as one in four students at some elite U.S. colleges are now classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety,” reports Douglas Belkin in theWall Street Journal. Under federal law, that entitles them accommodations such as more time to take exams or a private, distraction-free testing room.
At Pomona, 22% of students were considered disabled this year, up from 5% in 2014. . . . At Hampshire, Amherst and Smith colleges in Massachusetts and Yeshiva University in New York, one in five students are classified as disabled. At Oberlin College in Ohio, it is one in four. At Marlboro College in Vermont, it is one in three.
Disability diagnoses are way up at flagship state universities, but haven’t caught up to elite private colleges, reports Belkin.
More than a decade ago, the College Board, which administers the SAT and PSAT among other tests, stopped alerting colleges when students received extra time, and the numbers who requested it began to increase. From 2010-11 to last year, the number of accommodations requests jumped 171%, while the number of people taking the exams increased 22%. Last year, 94% of those requests were approved.
Wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations, which require a than students from low-income families, said special-education attorney Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, who warned about Disabling the SAT in 2003.
Read more. http://www.joannejacobs.com/2018/06/22-of-pomona-students-are-disabled/