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oefrha 2 hours ago

> "It's just not. It's rich kids getting extra time on tests." Talented students get to college, start struggling, and run for a diagnosis to avoid bad grades.

Okay, I was an undergrad at Stanford a decade ago, I graduated with two majors (math, physics) and almost another minor (CS) so I took more credits than most and sat in more tests than most, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single person given extra time on tests; and some of the courses had more than a hundred people in them, with test takers almost filling the auditorium in Hewlett Teaching Center if memory serves. Article says the stat “has grown at a breathtaking pace” “over the past decade and half” and uses “at UC Berkeley, it has nearly quintupled over the past 15 years” as a shocking example, so I would assume the stat was at least ~10% at Stanford a decade ago. So where were these people during my time? Only in humanities? Anyone got first hand experience?

an hour ago | parent | next [-]
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devnullbrain an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At another university I once had extenuating circumstances preventing me from taking an exam in one of the main exam halls. I was invited to take it in a normal classroom, where a session was being held at the same time for people who get additional time. I was able to start later and still finish with the normal allowance but without having a chance to collude with other students.

OneDeuxTriSeiGo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> So where were these people during my time?

Testing accomodations are generally done at a separate time. So students with an accomodation requiring a low distraction environment or extra test time would all take their test after the main test takers.

This came with the dual advantage of providing an alternate time for students who had excused absences to take the test as well.

TLDR: You don't normally see the students with accomodations during tests unless you also have an accomodation or you had a conflict with the test time/date.

oefrha an hour ago | parent [-]

Most of my courses beyond freshman year were 10-20 people where I basically know everyone (unless they never come to class), so I would know if they weren’t showing up at exams. I’m pretty sure if these people were evenly distributed I would notice every exam for every class missing 1-2 people. So this is not it.

OneDeuxTriSeiGo an hour ago | parent [-]

It really depends on the environment tbh. I know just for the "low distraction environment" accomodations, those normally aren't used for small classes but they are used for the big exams where they stuff the entire freshman class in the program into a series of auditoriums.

And of course some professors do double time accommodations by having the students take the test with everyone else and then follow the teacher to their office to finish the exam afterwards but tbh I didn't see that very often.

rovr138 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or it wasn't diagnosed, defined, or the diagnosis wasn't good. Doesn't mean that they weren't there.

oefrha 2 hours ago | parent [-]

TFA is specifically about students claiming disabilities to get extra time on tests. I’m saying from first hand experience that I didn’t know a single instance of anyone getting extra time on tests, and wondering where those alleged instances were occurring. Anything that “wasn’t diagnosed, defined, or the diagnosis wasn’t good” (huh?) has nothing to do with the 38% stat, or anything else in the article, really.