Definitely some scamming going on but there is more to the story, there have been a couple of trends that have resulted in an increase in various disability diagnoses.
Firstly, upper middle class schools and parents have been under illusion that their students would have an advantage in elite college admission if they grade more aggressively and maintain a high workload. Colleges never pushed back against this idea but increasing treated grades between schools as being comparable, a 4.0 GPA from an academically demanding school is no different from a 4.0 from a very weak school.
In addition, the practice of continuous assessment has been significantly ramped up over the past decade or so. In less demanding environments, continuous assessment gives less academically inclined but diligent students an easy way to get high grades. In more academically demanding environments it ramps up the stress and workload, and has a very negative effect on student mental health.
These two trends have resulted in upper middle class students at many "good" schools being slammed with an absurd assessment and workload burden that is largely artificial. In more typical schools, a common pattern is for students to get good grades in AP courses but fail the AP exam, in these schools that is reversed, students easily pass an AP exam but struggle to get good grades in the school's AP course (which is everything in selective college admissions). When you have genuinely academically capable students putting in a reasonable effort struggling to meet an important metric, seeking a disability accommodation starts to seem reasonable.
We are hearing more about the large numbers of students cruising into selective universities with 4.0+ GPAs and yet struggling with basic math. A lot has gone wrong with academic assessment in America, disability accommodations come downstream of a lot of gaming and manipulation by the education establishment.
Re: Colleges never pushed back against this idea but increasing treated grades between schools as being comparable, a 4.0 GPA from an academically demanding school is no different from a 4.0 from a very weak school.
Well, that does push back, and non-trivially, against the (unearned) advantage that upper middle class kids have due to their parents being able to afford pricey neighborhoods with the best schools. Ever heard of "Thieves of the American Dream"?
"Colleges never pushed back against this idea but increasing treated grades between schools as being comparable, a 4.0 GPA from an academically demanding school is no different from a 4.0 from a very weak school."
I don't have any experiences with college admissions on this front, but with the medical schools I've been acquainted with this isn't true, not internally at least. When evaluating candidates, they do not treat GPA's from all schools the same.
"These two trends have resulted in upper middle class students at many "good" schools being slammed with an absurd assessment and workload burden that is largely artificial. In more typical schools, a common pattern is for students to get good grades in AP courses but fail the AP exam, in these schools that is reversed, students easily pass an AP exam but struggle to get good grades in the school's AP course (which is everything in selective college admissions). When you have genuinely academically capable students putting in a reasonable effort struggling to meet an important metric, seeking a disability accommodation starts to seem reasonable."
This is especially unfortunate because a lot of these continuous assessment assignments are incredibly poorly designed from a didactic perspective. Frequent quizzing is actually a good learning tool, potentially, but it gets misused. And many of the assignments they give are of the A for effort variety which doesn't do much pedagogically. In the end, you have students running themselves ragged to jump through hoops that are pretty useless from a real learning standpoint.
Treating grades as being comparable across schools is the current trend but is probably not universal.
"And many of the assignments they give are of the A for effort variety which doesn't do much pedagogically. In the end, you have students running themselves ragged to jump through hoops that are pretty useless from a real learning standpoint."
That's the problem, continuous assessment is being used to prioritize effort and compliance giving us the combination of high stress combined with declining academic standards. As someone very familiar with international education, it is is very noticeable how much harder American students have to work to reach the same academic level as their foreign counterparts.
In contrast to the NYT, The Free Press has a great piece (paywalled) about how staying in your marriage is good, actually:
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-my-marriage-was-broken
Definitely some scamming going on but there is more to the story, there have been a couple of trends that have resulted in an increase in various disability diagnoses.
Firstly, upper middle class schools and parents have been under illusion that their students would have an advantage in elite college admission if they grade more aggressively and maintain a high workload. Colleges never pushed back against this idea but increasing treated grades between schools as being comparable, a 4.0 GPA from an academically demanding school is no different from a 4.0 from a very weak school.
In addition, the practice of continuous assessment has been significantly ramped up over the past decade or so. In less demanding environments, continuous assessment gives less academically inclined but diligent students an easy way to get high grades. In more academically demanding environments it ramps up the stress and workload, and has a very negative effect on student mental health.
These two trends have resulted in upper middle class students at many "good" schools being slammed with an absurd assessment and workload burden that is largely artificial. In more typical schools, a common pattern is for students to get good grades in AP courses but fail the AP exam, in these schools that is reversed, students easily pass an AP exam but struggle to get good grades in the school's AP course (which is everything in selective college admissions). When you have genuinely academically capable students putting in a reasonable effort struggling to meet an important metric, seeking a disability accommodation starts to seem reasonable.
We are hearing more about the large numbers of students cruising into selective universities with 4.0+ GPAs and yet struggling with basic math. A lot has gone wrong with academic assessment in America, disability accommodations come downstream of a lot of gaming and manipulation by the education establishment.
Re: Colleges never pushed back against this idea but increasing treated grades between schools as being comparable, a 4.0 GPA from an academically demanding school is no different from a 4.0 from a very weak school.
Well, that does push back, and non-trivially, against the (unearned) advantage that upper middle class kids have due to their parents being able to afford pricey neighborhoods with the best schools. Ever heard of "Thieves of the American Dream"?
"Colleges never pushed back against this idea but increasing treated grades between schools as being comparable, a 4.0 GPA from an academically demanding school is no different from a 4.0 from a very weak school."
I don't have any experiences with college admissions on this front, but with the medical schools I've been acquainted with this isn't true, not internally at least. When evaluating candidates, they do not treat GPA's from all schools the same.
"These two trends have resulted in upper middle class students at many "good" schools being slammed with an absurd assessment and workload burden that is largely artificial. In more typical schools, a common pattern is for students to get good grades in AP courses but fail the AP exam, in these schools that is reversed, students easily pass an AP exam but struggle to get good grades in the school's AP course (which is everything in selective college admissions). When you have genuinely academically capable students putting in a reasonable effort struggling to meet an important metric, seeking a disability accommodation starts to seem reasonable."
This is especially unfortunate because a lot of these continuous assessment assignments are incredibly poorly designed from a didactic perspective. Frequent quizzing is actually a good learning tool, potentially, but it gets misused. And many of the assignments they give are of the A for effort variety which doesn't do much pedagogically. In the end, you have students running themselves ragged to jump through hoops that are pretty useless from a real learning standpoint.
Treating grades as being comparable across schools is the current trend but is probably not universal.
"And many of the assignments they give are of the A for effort variety which doesn't do much pedagogically. In the end, you have students running themselves ragged to jump through hoops that are pretty useless from a real learning standpoint."
That's the problem, continuous assessment is being used to prioritize effort and compliance giving us the combination of high stress combined with declining academic standards. As someone very familiar with international education, it is is very noticeable how much harder American students have to work to reach the same academic level as their foreign counterparts.