Learning accommodations for students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are designed to ensure that grades reflect a student’s understanding of course material by providing support to correct difficulties with attention and time management.
In high school, diagnosed students are supported through Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 plans, which include extended time on tests, preferential seating away from distractions, and organizational assistance. These accommodations are meant to assist students with learning disabilities, but would provide a measurable advantage if neurotypical students were to seek out a diagnosis.
Dialogue about accommodations being used as a loophole has grown in response to recent reports showing that students with accommodations are more likely to achieve academic success: According to the New York Times, nearly 40 percent of students at Stanford University had an ADHD diagnosis in high school compared to the national average of roughly five percent, along with one in five students at Harvard and Brown University. Meanwhile, the number of students receiving testing accommodations has tripled in the past eight years at the University of Chicago and quadrupled in the past 15 years at the University of California, Berkeley. This dramatic increase in recent years raises an important question: are accommodations, intended to level the playing field for students who need them, being used as a strategy for savvy students trying to game the college admissions system?
One concern is that ADHD diagnoses are easy to fake, or at least exaggerate, because they rely heavily on self-reported symptoms such as difficulties with paying attention and time management. A University of Kentucky study found that college students instructed to fake having ADHD were almost completely indistinguishable from those with real diagnoses when using standard self-report tests. Participants were even given just five minutes to prepare using Google, yet many still successfully imitated ADHD symptoms. Researchers concluded that common evaluation methods may not reliably detect ADHD and that the system of diagnosis procurement is vulnerable to abuse.
Additionally, the incentives to fake ADHD can be significant. Students with diagnoses often receive extended time on tests, including a 50 to 100 percent time increase on the SAT, depending on the diagnosis, and additional academic flexibility in their regular classes. While these accommodations have proven successful in helping students with ADHD demonstrate their knowledge, they could provide neurotypical students with a substantial advantage if obtained without genuine need.
The issue of accommodation abuse gained national attention in the 2019 college admissions scandal involving actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. While the scandal is best known for fabricated athletic credentials and bribery, testing accommodations were ubiquitously present. According to federal affidavits, parents were instructed to have their children “purport to have learning disabilities” so they could obtain medical documentation and take exams at special testing centers.
Prompted by the situation, a PBS News article evaluated the fairness of and current status of accommodations, saying, “At the same time as courts have backed the right to accommodations, reports have spread of wealthy individuals gaming the system by gaining diagnoses that a poor student might never get. Several studies have found that wealthy students, on average, are more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities than are low-income students.” The study in question was a 2000 person study by the California State Auditor, which found that 1.2 percent of high school graduates received extra time on the SAT. Compared with the state's population, those students were more likely to be white, to come from wealthy families, and to attend private schools. White students were 30 percent overrepresented in comparison to the general population of people with accommodations taking the SAT. Additionally, while only 12 percent of students taking the SAT reported an income of above $100,000, 28.7 percent of students with accommodations reported families with an income above $100,000.
The same article quotes David Benjamin Gruenbaum of Ahead of the Class, a California-based test-prep company, who said the week's indictments didn't surprise him because he has seen many abuses of learning-disability diagnoses. He said, "It doesn't take an illegal bribe to get such a diagnosis." Continuing, he said, "But the system is dominated by wealthy families who take advantage of this." Gruenbaum said that learning disabilities are real and that students with them should get support. But he said he sees parents who "just go from doctor to doctor until they get a diagnosis."
Today, the discrepancies in diagnoses corresponding with wealth have only grown. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that 4.2 percent of students at affluent schools received disability accommodations compared with just 1.6 percent at high-poverty schools. This likely stems from the high costs of diagnostic tests, initial consults being three hundred to five hundred dollars, and psychologist/neuropsychologist being one thousand to five thousand dollars, as well as wealthy parents’ increased financial freedom to invest in their children’s academic success. Everyone must get officially diagnosed to get accommodations.
In a different 2019 interview with PBS News, Jayne Fonash, a recently retired high school counselor in Virginia and the president-elect of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said that in her two decades of working with students to take college exams, it was extremely rare for a disability request to be denied.
To be clear, growing awareness of ADHD and learning differences is a good thing. Most students genuinely benefit from accommodations, and these supports remain essential for creating equal learning environments based on content mastery, not workflow or test-taking ability.
However, if accommodations are increasingly used as a strategic advantage, students without access to expensive evaluations may be placed at a disadvantage. At the same time, overuse of accommodations risks undermining support for students who genuinely need them. When accommodations become widespread, they lose their intended purpose of leveling the playing field.