Sooo...as you all probably know, I reallllllly wanna go to grad school. I've been talking to some Professors at my school who double as grad school admission committee members. From what I gather, it doesn't matter how severe your ADD/learning disabilities are, there are GPA cut-offs and if you don't meet them, you're pretty much screwed.

I am actually having the wacky idea of attacking the system here, and I'm hoping there are some people out there who might want to join me on this...My "platform" is that people with ADD cannot be held to the common standard for Grad School Admission if they are not being medicated during Undergrad.

A formalized procedure should be followed when considering an application from a treatable disability such as ADD:
#1) Schools should be required to flag the records of any student who enters Academic Probation or Subject to Dismissal, or who receives more than two F's during a certain period.
The "flag" on their record will require a MANDATORY recommendation
from the school that the student be evaluated for a learning disability or
ADD-this can come in the form of a letter from the administration to the
student, or a required academic counseling session.
#2) Once the administration has performed this duty and received a signed release of liability from the student, the school is freed of any liability for the student's academic progress (it's the STUDENT's decision if they want to seek help).

and, most importantly...

#3) ANY STUDENT who has ADD cannot be held to the same standard as other students for graduate school admission or college graduation for any period during which they did not know they had ADD, and were not being treated for it. (Essentially, if I have ADD but don't know about it, there is NO way you can compare me to a normally functioning student. If I have been diagnosed and treated, then you may compare me on leve ground with the general student body).

This is based on the idea that holding an ADD individual's GPA/academic performance against them when they were UNAWARE that they had the condition is a form of discrimination since the disorder, untreated, is academically debilitating. If an academic institution wishes to hold a student to the same standards as the general populace, then they must prove that they have provided fair and equal access to the KNOWLEDGE of and EVALUATION FOR such a treatable disability.

Further, any student with a legally diagnosed disability should be held to a unique set of admission requirements providing that their disability can be remedied by i) medication ii) physical accomodations or iii) behavioral therapy.

A new set of admission criteria goes into effect AFTER the diagnosis and treatment have begun and it is THIS data, and NOT the data prior to diagnosis, that will be used in the admission considerations for this student.

What does everyone think???????

Just one man's opinion, but I disagree. I belive that it's incumbent upon the ADD person to find ways to meet the requirements. I'm not liking the idea of making the management of any aspect of ADD in the academic arena the schools responsibility. Students with all types of disabilities receive accomodations from schools provided that they meet the academic standards.

I also think you're courting heatache in a big way here. There is virtually no incentive for a school to do this and becasue of the sometimes nubulous nature of ADD it would be an extreamly difficult and costly set of proceedures to draft, implement and administer.

I know what you're saying, but how can someone help themself if they don't know they have a disability, or if they know what ADD is?

I struggled through 5 years of college before a friend finally told me about ADD and said that it might be the cause of the problems. In this time, I received NUMEROUS F's/Academic Probation warnings from the school, but never at any time did the school suggest being evaluated for a learning disability. They just punished me and caused me mental anguish by threatening me with expulsion--I met with counselor after counselor but nobody suggested ADD.

That's fine--but my point is that if someone doesn't have access to the KNOWLEDGE of ADD and thus the TREATMENT necessary to put them on the same level as the rest of the students, it is legally immoral to evaluate them by the same standards as the rest of the students for a period when they were NOT being treated.

Once they've been diagnosed, they are henceforth on the same level as the rest of the students.

I believe schools look at your current GPA (whether current means high school or undergraduate university) to predict academic performance (performance on paper, that is). I am probably wrong on this, but I believe the overall academic progress of a student body may affect the level of funding a school receives (in the case of a public university), which affects tuition rates, which affects the number of students attending, which effects income beyond overhead costs, which effects future development, etc, etc. The point is that there must be some reason why a school would be concerned with academic performance. Otherwise, they'd want everyone to be failing in order to make more money.

That out of the way, I don't see any reason why someone with ADD/LD would magically perform better (though I am not implying that such is not possible) in graduate school than undergraduate, other than increased interest in the subjects at hand (which isn't going to hide the ADD, only improve motivation). This is implicit descrimination only if the intent to discriminate against those with ADD/LD is present. The sad fact is that, much like employers using university degrees (though not consciously) to predict success in the typical highly-structured work environment, grad schools probably use GPA, along with other factors (like the undergraduate school one attended), to predict adademic achievement.

Do I see this as fair (the GPA requirement). No, not really. There are other people besided those with ADD/LD that are bitten by formal education. It depends on the school, but often times school requires passive learning, which is useless for some people (including myself), ADD or not (though ADD makes it worse). School defines a mold that defines the requirements for a model student, and if one doesn't fit the mold (no matter how intrinsically qualified), society says "tough luck".

I've had people tell me that it is quite difficult to get acceptance into a graduate institiution with a degree from the school I go to (sort of), irrespective of performance.

Maybe graduate schools should admit certain students that don't meed the requirements of admission on certain terms in order to prove oneself? For example, a school could require a student to maintain a certain GPA for a couple of semesters in order to give the student a chance to succeed. The GPA requirement wouldn't be insane, but since you aren't letting every single student in the door on such terms, it won't hurt the overall performance statistics very much, and the school would get more money due to increased admission.

Whoa...slow down...

In typical ADD fashion, I think we're confusing 2 separate problems here.

1- You're mad at your school and its student services departments, including medical and counselling people, because you showed all the classic signs of a learning disability (academic probation, bad grades, repeated classes, etc), and they simply shuffled you along from counsellor to counsellor with threats of expulsion, without having counsellors do a thorough job in regards to issues, learning disabilities, etc. I can relate, my school did the same thing to me. I went through 3 semesters of academic probation. I was placed with a counsellor, who, in his infinite wisdom, decided that placing me in an extra class with HUNDREDS of other kids in a LECTURE THEATRE(am I the only one who sees the comedy of errors here?), on the topic of "learning and studying skills", would be beneficial to me. It took me an incident with an essay involving ADD issues and CRYING(yes, tears...that's right I cried...) in my doctor's office to get a referral to a specialized ADD clinic at a children's hospital, where I finally got good people with insight and understanding to help me out and set me on a better path. Most schools, whether they be grade schools, high schools, or university/colleges, aren't equipped to deal with a disorder like ADD. Plus, it's harder to diagnose as you get older, as you develop coping skills that help hide it. Yes, your school's counsellors and doctors failed you, as most of mine did. It sucks, but you can't start helping yourself until you let it go.

2- You're trying to get into grad school, and your grades are preventing you from doing so.

Now, the catch is that you had an undiagnosed learning disability that wasn't being treated for your first 3 years of university, and that those 3 years and the associated grades are what is preventing you from getting into grad school. The key words here are "undiagnosed and untreated".

Why not break down your grades into pre/post diagnosis categories, and appeal the grad school's decision on the basis that your post diagnosis grades (which involve treatment for your "LD") are evidence that you have the ability and talent to do well in grad school, with your poorer prediagnosis/treatment grades are secondary evidence that treatment works?

If that doesn't work, apply to another grad school, but only AFTER contacting that school for information on their LD policies and how you can best apply them to your application.

Yes bcaddkid! That is exactly what I am talking about...My school basically made me think I was worthless instead of investigating possible causes...And it was actually *5* years of undergraduate that I went undiagnosed. As a sixth year double major (this somehow makes the 6 years excusable), I was only diagnosed one month ago, and I only have 6 classes left...The premise is, if I can do GREAT in those classes now that I am on medication and behavioral therapy, I can prove that it was my ADD that was responsible for my low grades, *NOT* my intelligence...I'm so glad you know what I'm talking about!

I agree with pretty much all the replies here. If you're not doing well in college, it really is your responsibility to figure out why and correct it. I think it may actually be illegal for schools receiving federal funds to force people to be tested for ADHD or learning disabilities.

I think you have less to worry about than you think, though. Grad school admissions people will give more weight to more recent work than to your first couple of years. They'll take a good look at your performance in upper division courses in your majors and count those a lot more than the C you got in freshman lit (unless one of your majors is English... then, I hope you did better in your upper level lit classes!).

If you did poorly in a lot of your earlier work, there really is reason to think you might not do well in graduate school: you simply might not know enough about the subject, yet. There are ways to bypass this limitation. You can be admitted with the condition that you rectify gaps in your knowledge by taking certain undergrad courses. This is usually called "conditional admission." You can prove you can do the work by taking courses as a nondegree student for a semester or two. Or, you can try and convince the admissions committee that you can do the work by mentioning your ADD, either in your personal statement, or in a separate letter. This last one is only good if you do well in your classes this year, however.