<p>I hope he’s back on track or at least on track to being back on track. I’m sure that was stressful in the extreme.</p>
<p>katliamom, my son’s IQ was also in the 99.9 range, but his processing speed was 6th%ile at the time of the test. He had undiagnosed T1 diabetes at the time, and he’s not been retested, so I don’t know what it is now, but his processing speed is a good deal slower than my oldest son (who also tests 99.9 range). School’s definitely easier for people who can process quicker, but there’s still a place out there for kids like mine and yours.</p>
<p>So you know exactly what we went through. The biggest mistake husband and I did was not getting our son tested earlier. An earlier diagnosis - and help! - would have made his late teen years SO much easier! He had atypical symptoms, and wasn’t very candid with counselors who talked to him about his underperformance in school, so he was lumped with other smart-but-lazy kids. Meds, and a lot of therapy for lingering depression, plus parental patience and encouragement have helped, and he’s back in college, and will begin full time starting in January. It’s been a hard long road. Now I wonder how many really brilliant kids failed in school or college because their issues weren’t recognized or addressed. So much waste of human potential! </p>
<p>If you are born with a high IQ but a slow processing speed, why would you qualify for extra time over someone with a low IQ and an average processing speed? I don’t understand how being very smart but slow is a disability, but being not smart and average is not.</p>
<p>@happykidsmom Simply because your child experienced a horrible teacher does not mean that questioning why Harvard and Princeton are admitting students who get extra time on standardized tests is a problem for you. Your child has nothing to do with that question. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. There are 7 billion people on this planet and about 6.95 billion of them would love to have the “problems” we have here in the USA. </p>
<p>I have actually had a student at an Ivy League explain to me that his learning disability was “not being able to finish tests on time.” I’m not saying that is all learning disabilities, but I am saying that this is the direction we are heading.</p>
<p>So… are you okay with a state university admitting a kid who got extra time on the test? Let’s say the time took the kid from a 550 to a 600 on their math section? Your problem only seems to be with the smartest kids. And again… if you don’t think a very smart kid can also have an LD, you don’t know what you are talking about. And if somehow you only think disability assistance is for those performing below average, then you aren’t really thinking about how to allow all students to reach their maximum potential. </p>
<p>Also, somehow you seem to think that admission to HYPS is the peak of success in life. You are obsessed with that one scenario. Most of us out here don’t think it is… you somehow think your chance in life is being stolen by these students. That is BS. And… no kid EVER got accommodations with the diagnosis that they couldn’t finish tests on time. That kid has an underlying medical diagnosis – you can’t get accommodations without them. And odds are very good it was diagnosed before the kid ever got to high school and standardized tests were even a consideration, as College Board and ACT often reject accommodation requests for students who are not diagnosed until high school.</p>
<p>I’ve never been on here with other identities. I’m amazed how invested people are in the notion that every single kid is deserving of special accommodations if he’s bright but not doing well in school. Yet somehow the lesser bright kids should just take their darn tests in the allotted time. I also fail to understand the reasoning that high IQ kids with some disability should get something that low IQ kids do not. How in the world do you rationalize that idea? They need to just deal with their low test scores because fate gave them a low IQ? If anyone gets extra time, then everyone should get extra time, especially the kids who aren’t even smart to start off with.</p>
<p>All good points, yet the fact is that when you attend a high school with 30 students who apply to your state’s top university and they are only going to let some in, the fact that 8 of those kids get extra time on tests and SATs will actually impact your ability to get in. And let’s face it. For every kid who gets into Harvard or Princeton, thousands get turned down. Having an extra hour or two on the SAT definitely makes a difference at that level.</p>
<p>Back to the OP:
“I grew up in the 80s and when no one in high schools or universities was given special consideration because of a learning disability.”</p>
<p>That is completely incorrect. Even in my first semester at an Ivy League school, there were kids getting extra time for exams. I was sick often freshman year of college, so I had to make up exams in the same setting that kids with double time took their exams.</p>
<p>Extra time has NO IMPACT on not that intelligent kids doing better on tests. If a child has a LD, the extra time allows them to use what they have.</p>
<p>Real life is NOT a series of timed tests. Real life is open book open notes, the time you have to do a project is spent on various things, some of which is working and some of which is thinking. You don’t have that option for standardized tests.</p>
<p>If you don’t like it, boycott college. Boycott the Americans with Disabilities Act. Park in handicapped spaces. Insist you get double time without a medical diagnosis. Go for it, and don’t forget, YOU deserve it because YOU are specialer than they are.</p>
<p>This thread has started to go in circles, so I am closing it.</p>