How dare you write something so ignorant? Wow, Princeton, take your pretentious bullshit, and your stuffy “I’m better than you attitude” and shove up your ass. You don’t know Diane, I do, and trust me she is a bright girl. She biologically cannot be on a playing field like yours. You don’t know what it’s like to have a disability like hers, so don’t doubt that she has one. God, no wonder everyone views us as assholes when we get out of Princeton, you are a prime example of what’s wrong with this place. Diane has every right to be here, she EARNED it. She also has a right to have her disability accommodated.

While I can’t comment on her individual case, the following paragraph is false:

“The complaint alleges that Tominey told Metcalf-Leggette that only eight other students currently receive accommodations from the Office of Disability Services, and that none have been awarded extra exam time.”

I know for a fact at least one student this semester who had demonstrated a disability granting extension of the time limit for in-class tests and examinations +X%, X a fixed (confidential but known) number: 0<X<=200 for several/all courses as one of the accommodations.

The general procedure is:

(1) Students with disabilities who are requesting academic accommodations must submit documentation to the ODS that shows a significant impairment in one or more major life activity, such as seeing, hearing, walking or learning. (2) If ODS determines that the student is eligible for academic accommodations, the student completes a form to identify the instructors that should be notified of the approved accommodations. (3) ODS then e-mails a letter outlining these accommodations to the selected instructors. (4) If instructor does not receive a letter and a student requests accommodations, they should contact ODS. Instructors may not determine appropriate accommodations on their own or give accommodations that have not been approved by ODS.

(5) Reasonable accommodations for students might include extended testing time, reduced distraction testing, use of computer, enlarged print materials, readers, scribes, note takers, or sign language interpreters. (6) Testing accommodations are typically arranged by the department.

All I have to say is… wow. You’re sticking up for your friend, acquaintance, whatever relation you have to her, and that’s admirable. However, you’re extremely misguided about how testing, especially standardized testing works.

As previous posters have also said, standardized tests like the SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT are difficult in large part because of time pressure. In other words, they’re designed so that the average student has to rush, doesn’t necessarily have time to finish, etc. Part of the test is to measure your ability to complete analytical tasks rapidly and in less time that you might normally want — that’s the idea behind a timed test, as opposed to a paper.

Receiving two (SAT) to three (ACT) times the amount of time to take a standardized test makes the results of that test suspect to say the least. This is why College Board used to mark the tests of people who received extra time with the notation “Nonstandard Administration” — as in, take these results with a huge grain of salt, because the test taker had a ridiculous amount of time, and therefore, his/her ability can’t fairly be compared with other test takers. However, based on a lawsuit, they no longer are able to do that.

Tests in the college context have the same timed component to them. The idea is that you have a limited amount of time to answer a series of complex problems, either computationally (math & sciences) or in essay form (liberal arts). The only fair way for the professor to compare the different abilities and aptitudes of the students is for there to be consistent test parameters.

Hell, if we’re going to allow Diane to have extra time, then well, my memory really sucks so all closed book tests are unfair to me. Shouldn’t I be able to receive a bunch of notecards for every exam? Of course, not — my limitation is my own problem, and while I can certainly explain it away to prospective employers, professors, etc., I don’t receive said notecard, because it would be unfair to the other students who are taking the test under the same controlled environment and in many cases, are being compared to each other in grading.

I’m sorry that Diane may have a learning disability, but it’s not Princeton’s responsibility to bend over backward to accommodate her, to the detriment of other students and the remaining integrity of its grading system. Reasonable accommodations can be made (like giving her a tutor, or having someone help her prepare for tests), but if she’s not able to take tests without 100% extra time, then maybe she should have applied to a less vigorous university where she wouldn’t need all the extra accommodation.

Lastly, once she ends up in the real world, employers aren’t going to be understanding of this learning disability, extra time thing. In the real world, whether it be business, law, medicine, etc., there are deadlines and situations where things need to be completed on a really timely basis. If Diane can’t handle taking midterms, how is she going to handle those types of situations?

I have to agree with pretty much everyone else. If you’re at Princeton, you need to chin the fuck up and do the best on your tests that you can. You might only get B’s, but hey that’s not so bad at all. Plus, you can explain to employers later that you have a learning disability but you decided to take the test the same as everyone else. They will appreciate your pluckiness and can-do attitude far more than they will chafe at your B grades. Unfortunately, Diane, now you just seem like a whiny jerk.

And, Yale Man, I’m not sure what the hell you are talking about. She would definitely be on the bottom 50% of the hotness scale, even at Yale.

What a joke. I wish I had double the time when I took my GMAT’s.

Part of intelligence is being able to think under pressure. What if this girl becomes an investment banker and asks her MD if she can get twice the time to crank out the excel model when he wants it the next day? Etc. Etc.

Life isn’t fair and she should suck it up instead of asking for special permissions. I would never hire her if I were an employer; she screams troublemaker waiting to file a lawsuit.

Here is the thing. Diane is a young girl. No matter what, she is going through something big. No matter how you feel about the case, stop making personal comments. You do not know her. The things said on here are disgusting. Talk about the case as much as you want, waste your time if you wish, but please don’t make comments about her personally.