Ole Miss drops GPA exceptions for rush

[fantASTic]

Originally Posted by exlurker

WaterChild -- and others -- colleges and universities are required by law to provide services and accommodations for students with disabilities, including those with learning disabilities. A question-and-answer overview of some of the major issues is available:

http://www.pacer.org/publications/adaqa/504.asp

This ^ is only one of many possible sources of information about the rights and responsibilities of postsecondary students with disabilities, and college / university services for them. There aren't necessarily easy one-size-fits-all
answers to each individual student's situation.

Yes, it's true that many students with disabilities receive needed services in high school and elementary school; however, they may also require services while in college.

Yes...but when does it end? High school students who struggle because of a learning disability may get accepted to colleges because of this law...but what about when they graduate after being coddled and 'accommodated'? Are jobs expected to also have lower expectations? Sorry, but in the real world, you are judged on what you accomplish...and I would NOT want to hire someone who had been conditioned to strive for the bare minimum, or even below that, like many, many people with learning disabilities are.

I realize this is a law, and it's illegal for universities to discriminate. I just don't agree with it in conjunction with learning disabilities. Students who need that much special accommodation that they receive both special privileges (such as extra testing time) and STILL cannot maintain a 2.5 are in serious risk of not making it in the real world...without the stresses of a sorority added on.

I realize this sounds harsh. However...I've seen this attitude of "I have a learning disability, so I deserve an A without doing any work" in a lot of people, which is why I feel this way.

[SWTXBelle]

I think it boils down to the fact that the primary business of a college or university is to EDUCATE. If a student cannot maintain a 2.5, with or without help, the student needs to concentrate on his/her classes.

Sorority membership is a privilege, not a right, and I don't think it is a form of discrimination to say to ANY student "If you cannot meet this grade requirement, you need to focus on your studies and not a social group".

[OleMissGlitter]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

I think it boils down to the fact that the primary business of a college or university is to EDUCATE. If a student cannot maintain a 2.5, with or without help, the student needs to concentrate on his/her classes.

Sorority membership is a privilege, not a right, and I don't think it is a form of discrimination to say to ANY student "If you cannot meet this grade requirement, you need to focus on your studies and not a social group".

Amen!

[breathesgelatin]

Originally Posted by fantASTic

Yes...but when does it end? High school students who struggle because of a learning disability may get accepted to colleges because of this law...but what about when they graduate after being coddled and 'accommodated'? Are jobs expected to also have lower expectations? Sorry, but in the real world, you are judged on what you accomplish...and I would NOT want to hire someone who had been conditioned to strive for the bare minimum, or even below that, like many, many people with learning disabilities are.

I realize this is a law, and it's illegal for universities to discriminate. I just don't agree with it in conjunction with learning disabilities. Students who need that much special accommodation that they receive both special privileges (such as extra testing time) and STILL cannot maintain a 2.5 are in serious risk of not making it in the real world...without the stresses of a sorority added on.

I realize this sounds harsh. However...I've seen this attitude of "I have a learning disability, so I deserve an A without doing any work" in a lot of people, which is why I feel this way.

I feel what you're saying to a large degree, but I believe there are some cases in the working world where people receive accommodations.

Now, I'm thinking about this based on my experience as a college instructor and the different kinds of accommodations I had to grant (well, actually, I didn't grant them per se- the appropriate UT office did and just told me what I needed to do and often administered the accommodations itself).

For example, probably the most common situation I got was a student who needed additional time for taking a test. Now, how many times in the working world, REALLY, do you take a 1-hour timed test? I don't think a project with a deadline is comparable to this at all. Furthermore some students got to take their test in a special quiet room because frankly, when you have 80-300 people in a classroom taking a test, people are going to finish early, rustle around, scrape chairs, that kind of thing. Again, not a huge problem in the working world.

Also, a lot of my students who needed accommodation were blind and got special translation services into Braille and to take their exams on special computers at the appropriate UT office, etc. Some students who had other physical disabilities which impaired their ability to write and got a similar type of accommodation. I know that employers are also required to make these sorts of accommodations in at least some cases...

I say all this never having had a student with a DOCUMENTED learning or physical disability who was a problem student or who would have struck me to have below a 2.5. The students who have their disability documented and know what accommodations they need are usually go-getters and very good students. The students who were NOT go-getters were those who would come to me claiming that they had a disability but have no official documentation on it and would not be working with the UT office that oversees these matters. I would refer them to the office because you don't get accommodations unless you can show documentation. I had the sense that these students were trying to trick me into giving them unneeded accommodations and were just lazy people who were making excuses and blaming their own poor performance on disabilities they may or may not have had. Case in point: these students often had extremely poor attendance, which was not the case for students with documented disabilities.

[kddani]

If requiring certain grades is "discrimination" why hasn't the NCAA been sued? College athletes have to meet certain requirements to participate in their sport.

Originally Posted by kddani

If requiring certain grades is "discrimination" why hasn't the NCAA been sued? College athletes have to meet certain requirements to participate in their sport.

Good point.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by kddani

If requiring certain grades is "discrimination" why hasn't the NCAA been sued? College athletes have to meet certain requirements to participate in their sport.

Didn't they discuss that at length as they phased in the requirements? If I'm remembering it right, no one actually said "that's discrimination," but there was a lot of concern about the impact of the requirements particularly hurting black high school athletes.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...53C1A965958260

[RU OX Alum]

I couldn't find my post, but wanted to clairify, my chapter doesn't discriminate on race or anything like that (if you don't believe me check the website) but we do "blanket out" people that are disrespectful to women. If one of the young women at the party says you were rude, then you don't get a bid. Also, I hope we look really, really hard at legacies, because they tend to come in two types Rare type: i;'m here to check it out, common type: my dad/brother/whatever was a brother so i know more about fraternities than you

/hijack

[adpiucf]

I support this decision. If you have a documented learning disability, your university is legally obligated by the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide you with extra time on exams (you can opt not to accept it), offer you assistance with note taking, and workshops on time management. Some students even take medication. All of these things help those students with learning disabilities to level the playing field. If they're still only making a 2.5 after all of these efforts to help them come up to speed, then that is where they would be at without the disability, IMHO.

Your learning disability should not mean you get treated with kid gloves. When it comes time to enter the workforce, no one is going to care why you missed your deadline or lost the big account. They won't blame your ADHD. They'll blame you for not being responsible about your work.

/Has a learning disability.
//Only found out about it 6 months ago.
///Didn't stop me from making the dean's list in college every semester, even though my standardized test scores always sucked.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally Posted by couggirl

Just because someone has a low GPA or SAT scores does not mean that they are lazy or pissed away their high school days. I know this is off topic, but this kind of offends me. I worked really hard in High school and had a okay GPA (3.3 due to lots of Art classes which =graranteeded A at my school) and Low SAT scores, but the does not mean that i did not work hard. I had a problem and the doctors could not figure out what was wrong with me. In college my grades were some times good, but sometimes bad. I could not figure out why. My GPA was barley a 2.3 for most of my college education. It was not until after I graduated from college that someone figured out that I have a pre-diabetic condition. Now that I am being treated for that this condition School is soo much easier and what use to take me hours to do I can do in about 30 minutes.

So please don't assume that just because someones grades are lower that they are lazy. Obviously their are exceptions, but there are actually reasons that some people have a hard time in school and therefor low GPA.

A 3.3 is not a "bad" GPA and you would have been able to go through recruitment, although if your application looked anything like this post I think you would have been cut anyway. Or cute. Hard to tell.

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

I feel what you're saying to a large degree, but I believe there are some cases in the working world where people receive accommodations.

Now, I'm thinking about this based on my experience as a college instructor and the different kinds of accommodations I had to grant (well, actually, I didn't grant them per se- the appropriate UT office did and just told me what I needed to do and often administered the accommodations itself).

For example, probably the most common situation I got was a student who needed additional time for taking a test. Now, how many times in the working world, REALLY, do you take a 1-hour timed test? I don't think a project with a deadline is comparable to this at all. Furthermore some students got to take their test in a special quiet room because frankly, when you have 80-300 people in a classroom taking a test, people are going to finish early, rustle around, scrape chairs, that kind of thing. Again, not a huge problem in the working world.

I agree with this completely - the classes I RAed for had a lot of people who needed a "quiet" test room and I think that's a perfectly reasonable accommodation. At your workplace the odds are you aren't going to be in a time sensitive situation with the person next to you shuffling papers and chomping cud and no way to get away from them.

I wonder what happened to the OP?

[sigmadiva]

Originally Posted by OTW

I wonder what happened to the OP?

I think that like most 'hit and run' posters on GC, she got overwhelmed by all of the different responses. I'm sure she thought that she would ask a simple question and get a simple answer. Answers on GC are never simple.


(I know that you know this OTW, I just wanted to answer.)

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

(I know that you know this OTW, I just wanted to answer.)

LOL, am I that e-predictable?

[carnation]

Let's take a break on this for awhile.