Nearly 40% of Stanford Undergraduates Are Registered as Disabled

When Almost Everyone Needs an Accommodation

A story about giftedness, pressure, and learning how to stand on your own

Eunice was the kind of student teachers remembered.

Quick to grasp ideas.
Curious to a fault.
Able to make surprising connections no one else saw.

By middle school, she was already labeled “gifted.”
By high school, she was also labeled something else: disabled.

ADHD.
Anxiety.
Executive-function challenges.

None of it was visible.
All of it was real.

By the time Eunice arrived at an elite university, she joined a quietly growing majority. Nearly four in ten undergraduates at her campus were registered with disability services. Extra time on exams. Flexible deadlines. Reduced-distraction testing rooms. Academic life, carefully padded.

To outsiders, the number sounded absurd.
To Eunice, it felt… normal.

Everyone she knew had paperwork.

The moment parents pause

For many intentional parents, this moment lands with a thud.

If almost half of elite students are “disabled,” what does that say about my child?
Are today’s standards broken—or finally honest?
Am I helping my child thrive… or quietly teaching them to lean forever?

These aren’t political questions.
They’re parental ones.

And they sit at the intersection of giftedness, mental health, and status pressure in ways our institutions are only beginning to understand.

What the numbers don’t tell you

When people hear “40% disabled,” they imagine wheelchairs and ramps.

That’s not what’s happening.

Most students receiving accommodations today are navigating non-visible challenges:

• ADHD
• Anxiety and depression
• Learning differences
• Processing-speed and executive-function gaps

For decades, these students were dismissed as careless or unmotivated. Many slipped through the cracks, burning out quietly.

So yes, part of this surge reflects long-overdue recognition and reduced stigma.

But that’s not the whole story.

Gifted kids feel pressure earlier—and deeper

Here’s what Eunice's parents didn’t realize at first:

Gifted children often experience pressure before they develop coping tools.

They:

• Notice expectations sooner
• Internalize failure more personally
• Feel the stakes earlier, even when adults think things are “low pressure”

By high school, Eunice wasn’t just trying to learn.
She was trying not to fall.

Accommodations helped. They stabilized her performance. They protected her GPA.

But they also did something subtler.

They shifted the question from
“How do I grow?”
to
“What exceptions do I qualify for?”

No one intended that shift.
But systems shape identity, especially for young people still learning who they are.

When support becomes the strategy

In hyper-competitive environments, even small advantages matter.

Extra time can mean the difference between:

• A B+ and an A
• A rejection and an offer
• Confidence and collapse

So families with resources do what families always do: they optimize.

Testing. Documentation. Letters. Specialists.

Not because their children are weak.
But because the system quietly rewards preparedness, not just ability.

This is where many parents feel the tension most sharply.

Am I advocating—or gaming?
Am I protecting my child—or narrowing them?

There are no easy answers. Only tradeoffs.

The part students rarely say out loud

By her second year, Eunice noticed something unsettling.

She was succeeding, but not strengthening.

Deadlines bent around her.
Pressure was diffused.
Consequences softened.

Yet when she imagined life after graduation, she felt a flicker of fear.

What happens when:

• Deadlines don’t move
• Output matters more than effort
• No office exists to translate struggle into accommodations

The workplace is not a campus.
And AI is making it even less forgiving.

Many students like Eunice are beginning to sense this gap—often too late.

The real question parents should be asking

The question is not:

“Are accommodations good or bad?”

That’s the wrong frame.

The better question is:

Are we using support to build capacity—or to replace it?

Support that builds capacity looks like:

• Coaching executive function, not just extending time
• Teaching self-advocacy, not dependency
• Gradually removing scaffolding as skills strengthen
• Helping students name challenges without fusing identity to diagnosis

Support that replaces capacity feels easier in the short term—and riskier in the long one.

A healthier path forward

For gifted and neurodivergent students, flourishing requires both compassion and courage.

Compassion:

• Acknowledging real challenges
• Reducing shame
• Providing stability when students are overwhelmed

Courage:

• Letting students struggle with support
• Practicing deadlines before the stakes are permanent
• Teaching skills that outlast any accommodation letter

The goal is not resilience theater.
It’s agency.

Where parents, educators, and mentors matter most

Eunice's turning point didn’t come from a new accommodation.

It came from a mentor who said:

“I’ll support you—but I won’t replace you.”

They worked on planning.
On breaking work into pieces.
On noticing avoidance patterns without judgment.

Slowly, Eunice needed less paperwork—and more confidence.

Not because she was “fixed.”
But because she was trained.

The quiet truth behind the headlines

When nearly half of elite students receive accommodations, it doesn’t mean a generation is broken.

It means:

• Pressure arrived before maturity
• Systems optimized performance faster than growth
• Support outpaced skill-building

For families raising gifted children, the invitation is clear—and uncomfortable:

Don’t just ask how to help your child succeed now.
Ask how to help them stand later.

That’s where real talent development happens.
Not in the exception—but in the capacity built beneath it.

Stories like Eunice's are unfolding quietly in homes and classrooms everywhere.

At GiftedTalented.com, we believe giftedness is not just about access—but about formation.

If this story resonated, you’re not alone.
And you’re asking the right questions.