I'm not going to try to diagnose the UM student here, but I will note that it is somewhat suspicious that the "exam anxiety" claim didn't come up until after he

I'm not going to try to diagnose the UM student here, but I will note that it is somewhat suspicious that the "exam anxiety" claim didn't come up until after he or she had failed for the second time. That's the bit that smells rotten for me too. I was receiving counseling for exam anxiety, and I knew full well about it when I was 17, not at the end of a PhD exam when I'm 22+, that I've already taken once already. There's a certain point where one has to step back and say "You had all this time to see a doctor, and yet you've made it this far without one, so why are you claiming this now after the fact?"