It’s a clandestine rumor that is whispered in the stacks
of Powell Library or passed around the table at a study session in
Covel Commons.
“My friend Juana knows this guy who pretended he had ADHD,
and he got 60 extra hours to take the MCAT. He got into Harvard
Medical School because of it and now he’s worth millions, and
he got a sweet dirt bike track put in his backyard and also a
monorail.”
“Oh yeah? Well I heard this guy Reuben faked a
psychological evaluation and it got him extra time on the GRE and
he got into the best English grad school and now he gets to add his
own words to the dictionary whenever he wants. That’s how
“˜crunk’ got in the Merriam-Webster.”
Some students seem to think that the greatest shortcut on the
path to graduate school is to fake a disability in order to obtain
accommodations when taking standardized tests (accommodations
usually amount to extra time, but range from providing a reader for
students with severe dyslexia, to making tests available in
Braille). People have told me they’ve heard of students
getting away with this type of dishonest behavior, which is known
as malingering. But when I started pressing students for specifics
about their sneaky associates, their bravado disappeared.
Students told me they have had friends who were given extra time
to take a standardized test, but come to think of it, that person
actually needed it because he truly has a disability. Of course,
the students could just be scared of a muckraker like me, but
complete anonymity was offered, and still no one came forward with
a real cheater.
Yet, after talking with several psychologists and analysts who
administer psychological evaluations that determine a
patient’s disability and the need for accommodations, it has
become apparent that the notion that it’s easy to lie about a
disability to gain accommodations ““ and that this is a
prevalent practice ““ is a myth.
“Not to sound arrogant but I don’t think you could
fool me,” said David Shirinyan, a clinical psychology
graduate student at UCLA who worked in the UCLA Psychology Clinic,
where psychological evaluations are administered, for two years.
“Students can read about psychological testing methods on the
Internet but there are some things they don’t
know.”
Shirinyan said malingering is most common among law school
applicants ““ students who face the dreaded LSAT. At the UCLA
Psychology Clinic, evaluators do not confront possible malingerers,
because “there is never total certainty when you suspect
someone is malingering,” Shirinyan said. “You
don’t want to ruin anyone’s life.”
The LSAT, which is administered by the Law School Admission
Council, was given on Saturday, so I thought I’d speak with
some hardworking students after they completed the rigorous,
life-draining examination to see how they felt about
malingering.
“I would feel cheated out of all my hard work if I knew
about people who lied to get extra time,” said Ellie
Altshuler, a fourth-year political science student who took the
test Saturday.
On Sunday, between sips of a celebratory mimosa, Altshuler also
said that she did not know of anyone who got undeserved
accommodations for the exam. LSAT takers needn’t worry about
malingerers distorting the test’s curve because the scores of
students who take the test with accommodations are not considered
in the curve for the general exam.
In recent years, testing companies have set more stringent
guidelines for obtaining accommodations. Now accommodation requests
are sent directly to testing companies, not schools. There was a
time when the Educational Testing Service, which administers the
SAT, GRE and GMAT, allowed for an accommodation of 100 percent
extra time, or double the time allotted for a test.
A psychologist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for
business reasons, said that in the last two years, she and her
colleagues have not known of any student to be given a 100 percent
increase in testing time. The psychologist, who administers
evaluations for the purpose of obtaining accommodations for
standardized testing, said that in practice the maximum extension
that is granted is a 50 percent increase in time.
“Now the requirements are more significant,” the
psychologist said. “Whatever accommodations are requested are
linked to a functional limitation that has to be a result of data
from test findings.”
There are also loaded ethical issues surrounding malingering. It
may seem like a great idea when your future is on the line, but by
unfairly obtaining accommodations students make a mockery of people
with actual disabilities. Additionally, an immoral psychologist
could falsify an evaluation for a patient, but I have faith in the
medical profession.
“It’s difficult to be a disabled person and
meanwhile there are students who haven’t had to overcome
disabilities who may lie to gain accommodations,” said
Kenneth Wells, a professor of psychiatry in the UCLA David Geffen
School of Medicine. “There would be a lot of concern about
this person’s ethics. The last thing you want is a doctor
who, under pressure, is going to lie.”
The notion of malingerers successfully faking disabilities seems
nothing more than a rumor. And if it is going on, the fakers’
efforts to feign disability probably require about as much effort
as actual studying.
So if you show up at a psychologist’s office hoping to
deceive, you probably won’t get the diagnosis you are looking
for. But maybe it’s good you’ll be visiting with a
psychologist anyway ““ Lord knows what pressures your father
puts on you to go to medical school and make the family proud. At
least you’ll have someone to talk to.
E-mail Miller at dmiller@media.ucla.edu.