LSAT Accommodations for Persons with Disabilities

LSA grants  test-taking accommodations for people with challenges.  However, last February, the ABA passed a resolution calling on LSAC to be more generous in granting accommodations in order to “best ensure that the exam results reflect what the exam is designed to measure, and not the test taker's disability." LSAC’s  response was less  than enthusiastic:

But Wendy Margolis, the LSAC's director of communications, called the resolution an "oversimplification of the issues" around accommodating test-takers with disabilities.

"LSAC believes that the ABA's Commission and House of Delegates based their report and resolution on outdated, incomplete information that does not accurately reflect current practices and does not take into account the actual experiences of disabled test takers," Margolis said.

Here is a recent story  of an LSAT applicant who argues that LSAC did not  grant him enough extra time in light of his challenges.

Meanwhile, accommodations are on the rise for ACT and SAT students.

During the 2010-11 school year, 5 percent of all test takers were provided with some feature that was intended to adapt the test to their needs, ACT spokesman Ed Colby said, compared with 3.5 percent of test takers in the 2007-08 school year.

The numbers of requests have been rising among SAT takers, too, along with an increase in test takers overall. Once students are approved for an accommodation, they don't have to reapply. Of new requests—almost 80,000 during the 2010-11 school year, compared with 10,000 fewer five years earlier—about 85 percent are approved, said Kathleen Steinberg, the spokeswoman for the College Board. The ACT said roughly 90 percent of requests made are granted

 Here’s the story.

(ljs)