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Many kids have an IEP - an individualized education plan. https://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html https://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced

Many kids have an IEP - an individualized education plan. https://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html https://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html They get extra time allocation to take tests - 50% more in most cases. The numbers I hear tossed around is that a substantial fraction (20% to 40%) of school kids in some of the elite public and private schools have IEPs. Clearly there are kids who need the extra time. But that many? ADHD is the reason that I hear the most. The extra test taking time is not reported to colleges. Combine 50% extra time with adderall. 1500+ SAT scores are not uncommon.

gotoeleven 3y ago
[flagged]
jcranmer 3y ago
> They get extra time allocation to take tests - 50% more in most cases. The numbers I hear tossed around is that a substantial fraction (20% to 40%) of school kids in some of the elite public and private schools have IEPs. Clearly there are kids who need the extra time. But that many? An IEP is a catch-all term for anything that requires special adjustment for a student. What the adjustment is varies depending on the situation--there's a reason it's called individualized. Having gone to one of those "elite public schools", it wouldn't surprise me if that large a fraction of kids had an IEP (hell, I did). However, in my experience, not one kid had an IEP that allotted them extra time to take tests. The only specific test adjustment I'm aware of was one kid who was so blind he needed the exams to be large print to have a hope of reading them.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > However, in my experience, not one kid had an IEP that allotted them extra time to take tests. There's a difference between the IEP that the school uses and the accommodation request for standardized testing. It would be pretty obvious to you if a student in your class were given extra time for in-class tests, but much harder for you to know if that student qualified for extra time on the SAT. If you knew when they were taking it then perhaps you could figure it out, but people who bend the rules to get extra time tend to not go around advertising when they're going to take the SAT, or at which test center, since that might out them as receiving extra time. All this to say: I'm not so sure a classmate would know if a fellow student received extra time on the SAT.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    You're aware that we generally took the SAT in the same kind of classrooms that we took our class tests, or the state standardized tests, or the APs? (Okay, the APs were largely in the gym instead of classrooms because there's several hundred people taking the AP exam at the same time, but same thing really). If kids were getting extra time on standardized tests, we'd know.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      > You're aware that we generally took the SAT in the same kind of classrooms that we took our class tests, or the state standardized tests, or the APs? Sounds like a very different experience than what I had. SATs were on Saturday, at a different HS. There were various HS's to choose from, depending on where you lived. I went to a magnet HS (sounds like you did too), so kids were from all over, and they took tests at whatever school was near their house. Within each test center, we were then broken into rooms based on last name, IIRC. I typically knew only 1 or 2 kids in the room I was in (the rest were from other HS's), and would have had no idea whether any of my classmates had extra time. Even in your situation, you wouldn't have known that a kid who took the SAT with you didn't also take it again, at a different test center, with extra time. Lots of kids take it more than once, and you can choose where to take it. Kids tried to keep this stuff on the down-low, either due to shame (because they actually had a disability) or to hide their undeserved accommodation (because they didn't have a disability).
- tssva 3y ago
  My daughter has an IEP due to her dyslexia. She gets extra time on in class writing assignments and tests which have a writing component. So no extra time in general for her math or science tests. Although for science there are sometimes writing components for which she gets additional time. English, history, government, etc which are writing heavy she gets extra time. For several of her classes she is dual enrolled with a local college and we had to apply to the college to get accommodations for those classes. They were actually much more generous with the accommodations granted than her high school. The only one she takes advantage of is the increased time. The College Board also granted her accommodations so she gets 50% longer on the SAT and AP tests. April will be her 1st attempt at the SAT. She has taken a few AP tests. ADHD is not considered a specific learning disability so should not qualify someone for an IEP or accommodations from the College Board.
  - testfoobar 3y ago
    College Board has a thorough set of pages on testing accommodations here: https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/ https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/ Guidelines for ADHD: https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/request-accommodations/provide-documentation/by-disability/adhd https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/request-accommodatio...
- testfoobar 3y ago
  You're correct - thanks for the clarification. IEP means individualized plan - not all kids with IEPs get extra time.
viraptor 3y ago
> Combine 50% extra time with adderall. 1500+ SAT scores are not uncommon. That's not a great take. If you want to complain about overprescribing, go ahead. But Adderall is meant for people who need it to get closer to baseline. People abusing the prescription is not a good reason to criticise IEP adjustments.
- testfoobar 3y ago
  Fair comment and distinction between IEPs, medical support and over prescribing. I'm all for helping people get to a healthy baseline in their life with medical support and medication as necessary. IEPs are necessary and benefical to many, many kids.
- Amezarak 3y ago
  Are stimulant prescriptions for ADHD carefully calibrated in dosage and time to get patients to a baseline? In my experience, doctors ask you questions to determine if you have attention deficits, then give you a prescription, which will be changed in various directions (different medication, increased dosage, etc) if you report problems; they very rarely in practice have you take an in-depth "attention measuring" test and then prescribe on that basis. What is the baseline? Would anyone consider it cheating if they took extra or changed their dosing schedule to maximize their test score? I think most people would consider that rational behavior, not abuse. But it does call into question whether that's "fair" to people without the drug.

gotoeleven 3y ago

[flagged]

jcranmer 3y ago

> They get extra time allocation to take tests - 50% more in most cases. The numbers I hear tossed around is that a substantial fraction (20% to 40%) of school kids in some of the elite public and private schools have IEPs. Clearly there are kids who need the extra time. But that many? An IEP is a catch-all term for anything that requires special adjustment for a student. What the adjustment is varies depending on the situation--there's a reason it's called individualized. Having gone to one of those "elite public schools", it wouldn't surprise me if that large a fraction of kids had an IEP (hell, I did). However, in my experience, not one kid had an IEP that allotted them extra time to take tests. The only specific test adjustment I'm aware of was one kid who was so blind he needed the exams to be large print to have a hope of reading them.

gnicholas 3y ago
> However, in my experience, not one kid had an IEP that allotted them extra time to take tests. There's a difference between the IEP that the school uses and the accommodation request for standardized testing. It would be pretty obvious to you if a student in your class were given extra time for in-class tests, but much harder for you to know if that student qualified for extra time on the SAT. If you knew when they were taking it then perhaps you could figure it out, but people who bend the rules to get extra time tend to not go around advertising when they're going to take the SAT, or at which test center, since that might out them as receiving extra time. All this to say: I'm not so sure a classmate would know if a fellow student received extra time on the SAT.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  You're aware that we generally took the SAT in the same kind of classrooms that we took our class tests, or the state standardized tests, or the APs? (Okay, the APs were largely in the gym instead of classrooms because there's several hundred people taking the AP exam at the same time, but same thing really). If kids were getting extra time on standardized tests, we'd know.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    > You're aware that we generally took the SAT in the same kind of classrooms that we took our class tests, or the state standardized tests, or the APs? Sounds like a very different experience than what I had. SATs were on Saturday, at a different HS. There were various HS's to choose from, depending on where you lived. I went to a magnet HS (sounds like you did too), so kids were from all over, and they took tests at whatever school was near their house. Within each test center, we were then broken into rooms based on last name, IIRC. I typically knew only 1 or 2 kids in the room I was in (the rest were from other HS's), and would have had no idea whether any of my classmates had extra time. Even in your situation, you wouldn't have known that a kid who took the SAT with you didn't also take it again, at a different test center, with extra time. Lots of kids take it more than once, and you can choose where to take it. Kids tried to keep this stuff on the down-low, either due to shame (because they actually had a disability) or to hide their undeserved accommodation (because they didn't have a disability).
tssva 3y ago
My daughter has an IEP due to her dyslexia. She gets extra time on in class writing assignments and tests which have a writing component. So no extra time in general for her math or science tests. Although for science there are sometimes writing components for which she gets additional time. English, history, government, etc which are writing heavy she gets extra time. For several of her classes she is dual enrolled with a local college and we had to apply to the college to get accommodations for those classes. They were actually much more generous with the accommodations granted than her high school. The only one she takes advantage of is the increased time. The College Board also granted her accommodations so she gets 50% longer on the SAT and AP tests. April will be her 1st attempt at the SAT. She has taken a few AP tests. ADHD is not considered a specific learning disability so should not qualify someone for an IEP or accommodations from the College Board.
- testfoobar 3y ago
  College Board has a thorough set of pages on testing accommodations here: https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/ https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/ Guidelines for ADHD: https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/request-accommodations/provide-documentation/by-disability/adhd https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/request-accommodatio...
testfoobar 3y ago
You're correct - thanks for the clarification. IEP means individualized plan - not all kids with IEPs get extra time.

viraptor 3y ago

> Combine 50% extra time with adderall. 1500+ SAT scores are not uncommon. That's not a great take. If you want to complain about overprescribing, go ahead. But Adderall is meant for people who need it to get closer to baseline. People abusing the prescription is not a good reason to criticise IEP adjustments.

testfoobar 3y ago
Fair comment and distinction between IEPs, medical support and over prescribing. I'm all for helping people get to a healthy baseline in their life with medical support and medication as necessary. IEPs are necessary and benefical to many, many kids.
Amezarak 3y ago
Are stimulant prescriptions for ADHD carefully calibrated in dosage and time to get patients to a baseline? In my experience, doctors ask you questions to determine if you have attention deficits, then give you a prescription, which will be changed in various directions (different medication, increased dosage, etc) if you report problems; they very rarely in practice have you take an in-depth "attention measuring" test and then prescribe on that basis. What is the baseline? Would anyone consider it cheating if they took extra or changed their dosing schedule to maximize their test score? I think most people would consider that rational behavior, not abuse. But it does call into question whether that's "fair" to people without the drug.