Accommodated Testing on the LSAT
Hello out there to all of you in LSAT Land. It’s early March, which is a strange, awkward time for the pre-law community (think: your middle-school years). We’re caught between two application cycles: one which culminated a few weeks ago with the February 1st deadline, and one that won’t officially start until a fresh batch of hopefuls take on the June 6th LSAT. Students are caught in pre-law purgatory, either waiting on law school decisions, or waiting for their LSAT class to start. The good news is that this gives us some extra time to make sure that we have every last nook and cranny of the LSAT covered, which we then so charitably pass on to you.
Today’s MSS article is about how the LSAC handles student requests for accommodated testing. A lot of students assume that accommodated testing simply means “extra time”, but there are actually numerous other functions, such as providing an LSAT in braille for the visually-impaired or making sure that students with certain disabilities are in a test center that is wheelchair accessible. These types of requests are straightforward, and are usually processed immediately once the LSAC receives the appropriate medical documentation.
The most commonly requested accommodation is from students with learning disabilities who want extra time to take the exam, usually because they have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD at some point in their lives.
The LSAC realizes that there is a lot of subjectivity and ambiguity in the diagnosis of learning disabilities, and on their web site, they make it perfectly clear that not every kid who has trouble concentrating is going to be granted extra time: diagnosis alone does not qualify you for accommodations. You must document the current functional impact of an impairment that limits a major life activity and provide both a rationale and an objective basis for the requested accommodations.”
With a high-stakes exam like the LSAT, the folks at the Law School Admissions Council correctly realize that there must be extremely high standards if a student is going to receive special accomodations. (It would have been nice to have some extra time on the logic games section of my LSAT, but that wouldn’t exactly have been fair). The LSAC takes into account the entire history of a student’s learning disability, as well as whether or not that student has been granted extra time on previous exams, like the SAT or AP tests. (Remember those AP tests?)
So, what should you do if you are a student with a legitimate request for special testing accomodations? The LSAC asks that these students first register for the LSAT and then submit the required paperwork as soon as possible. There are also specific forms that need to be submitted by your doctor, and there are different documents depending on whether the impairment is cognitive, visual, or physical. (Click here for more information).
For those who are going to be seeking some form of accommodation on the upcoming June LSAT, you should make sure that you register for the exam now, and then get all of the appropriate paperwork in order shortly thereafter.
For those concerned about fairness, it appears that the LSAC has some of the strictest standards possible to separate the legitimate and illigitimate requests, so sleep tight.
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Hi!
As a LD/ADD pre-law student, I’m a little frustrated by the tone of your article. No matter how legitimate your ADD diagnosis, the chances of getting accommodations from the LSAC are like 1 in 1000 at best, and after scouring the internet I’ve only read about two such cases. It isn’t a matter of “legitimate and illigitimate requests” as you put it, but rather the LSAC is completely categorically opposed to accepting an ADD diagnosis no matter how much documentation someone has. I find this extremely unfair, and I had to take the February LSAT with NO accommodations despite having the most “legitimate” paperwork and diagnosis one can possibly have, for ADD among other things.
This isn’t an issue of fairness for test takers. If anything, it is unfair for the LSAC to disregard the testing and differential diagnoses done by licensed psychologists under ADA guidelines using the DSM. This is something that I hope to address when I’m a lawyer because it baffles me that a random corporation can just deny someone accommodations for no discernible reason. They shouldn’t be allowed to have their own definition of “disabled” that is more strict then the actual authorities on these issues.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that ADD is over diagnosed. However, it is definitely possible to discern between someone who got an Adderall prescription from their family doctor and someone who has been dealing with a documented disability throughout their entire academic career, yet the LSAC treats these individuals as one and the same and denies them both.
I have ADHD and I’m also blind in my right eye. I’m a slow reader and my eye doctor submitted the paper work and a nice little letter and I was denied. That was 2 years ago. Now I took a psychoeducational evaluation and the doctor who administered the test sent LSAC a 37 page report where he concludes I need 30 extra minutes on each section and 15 minutes breaks and they dennied that too. I took the test 2 years ago and only got to 52 question and onyl scored a 133. I just took it again yesterday. This tiime only got to 40 questions so I can’t wait to see what I got.
prelawftw,
First of all, thank you for reading MSS and for your comment. I think the disconnect here stems partially from incomplete information on my part. I called and e-mailed the LSAC to find out what percentage of requests for extra time are actually granted, and predictably they could not provide a concrete number, instead reiterating their high standards and their case-by-case review process.
Admittedly, I did make the assumption that students such as yourself, who have been diagnosed with more than one learning disability (presumably at a younger age and with comprehensive testing) would have a pretty decent chance of being granted extra time. If your 1 in 1000 estimate is accurate, and if it is nearly impossible to receive these accommodations then I think you have a legitimate grievance.
I went to an undergraduate University where there were an amazing amount of students who suddenly found themselves with an ADD diagnosis and an Adderall prescription the second they went off to college (oftentimes prescribed by their own mother/father). If it were that easy to receive additional time on the LSAT, it would defeat the entire purpose of the exam. It doesn’t sound like you fall into this category at all, and I wish you the best of luck when the law school admissions cycle starts up in the fall.
From anecdotal evidence only, in my experience as an admissions consultant, those students with a long history of documentation (from grade school through college) who consistently utilized accommodated testing stand a better chance of getting more time on the LSAT. But it’s certainly true that LSAC appears to be quite leery of giving more time, which makes sense as it’s quite a prize indeed.
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I am not only an individual, who has a life long history of a learning disability since preschool, and was denied accommodations on the LSAT exam, but also was a Special Education Teacher in an Elementary and a High School. I can tell you Todd from experience that a Learning Disability or ADD can be just as frustrating as many physical impairments. This is something you obviously do not understand.
Furthermore, no one else I have dealt with has put up such a fight. I have taken the SAT, ACT, GRE, civil service exams and Professional Teacher Certification Tests without any problems. I have received my accommodations in elementary school, middle school, college, teacher preparation academies and even in foreign countries by simply submitting an up to date Neuropsychological Report. This article is clearly bias, and written by an individual, who has NO IDEA WHAT IT IS LIKE TO FACE THE DAILY CHALLENGES OF HAVING A COGNITIVE DISABILITY.