ADHD Applicants?

[Johndoewahoe]

How do law schools view applicants who have been diagnosed with ADHD during their university career? do they view it as an excuse to use medication? would u apply in the access category and provide documentation or the regular category and write an addendum? Thanks!

Edited June 17, 2021 by Johndoewahoe

[CleanHands]

34 minutes ago, Johndoewahoe said:

How do law schools view applicants who have been diagnosed with ADHD during their university career?

No differently than anyone else except to the extent it's relevant to an access claim.

34 minutes ago, Johndoewahoe said:

do they view it as an excuse to use medication?

No.

34 minutes ago, Johndoewahoe said:

would u apply in the access category and provide documentation or the regular category and write an addendum?

You should apply access if ADHD adversely impacted your undergraduate studies and you have since addressed the issue with a diagnosis, medication, etc, so to illustrate that your undergraduate performance is not reflective of your current ability to succeed at law school.

If ADHD had no impact on your prior academic performance (e.g. you were properly medicated and received strong grades) or if it did but your situation has not changed (in terms of treatment plan, etc) and there is no reason to believe that you would perform better in law school, you should not apply access or mention it at all in your application (if you require accommodations that is distinct from an access claim and you can discuss that with the school after getting accepted through the general category).

Edited June 17, 2021 by CleanHands

[Johndoewahoe]

Thanks! do you have personal experience with ADHD and the Access category? if so how was your law school experience? 

[ZineZ]

On 6/17/2021 at 2:08 AM, Johndoewahoe said:

How do law schools view applicants who have been diagnosed with ADHD during their university career? do they view it as an excuse to use medication? would u apply in the access category and provide documentation or the regular category and write an addendum? Thanks!

Hey!

So is an interesting and important question. Let me preface this by saying that my experience is based on having sat on the admissions committee while at Osgoode, but I strongly suspect that it will be similar in many places.

1. How do law schools view applicants who have been diagnosed with ADHD during their university career?

• Applications that crossed our desks while I was at Osgoode were not disadvantaged due to a previous ADHD/mental health diagnosis. If someone had a previous couple of years where they had not done at well at school and then you saw a jump post-treatment, we would typically discount the pre-medication/treatment years. The idea was that your actual aptitude was really demonstrated post-treatment, and it was unfair to judge you on how things had been before.

2. Do they view it as an excuse to use medication

• Absolutely not.  Accommodations and medications were seen positively and people were not seen as having taken an unfair advantage by using medication. Please do not worry about this.

3. Would u apply in the access category and provide documentation or the regular category and write an addendum? 

• This one is tough, and unfortunately I can't provide too much insight there. I did see some in the "regular applications" and we did provide decisions based on the explanation provided in their application (People would typically add it in as a part of their package with documentation). This is one where it may be worthwhile to ask the school itself, or see if someone else has advice.