More than 18% of students at Brown receive some form of accommodations — including extra time to take exams and for housing — through Student Accessibility Services, according to The Herald’s Spring 2026 poll.
The percentage of students who reported having a disability rose more than 50% over the past decade across a number of schools, the New York Times reported. At certain schools, like Stanford, 38% of students reported having a disability, though not all students who reported having a disability receive accommodations.
The amount of students at Brown requesting accommodations through SAS “continues to grow,” Interim Director of Student Accessibility Services Allen Kropp wrote in an email to The Herald that.
“I feel like Brown is a very inclusive place and very accommodating, so I would have expected them to be very lenient with accommodations and just try to get as many as they could” said Lucca Bertuccelli Loureiro ’29, who told The Herald he does not receive accommodations.
In 2013, an analysis of 200 postsecondary institutions showed that most disability offices “required little” from students other than doctor’s notes to get accommodations for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, The Atlantic reported.
While some professors acknowledge that students with disabilities require accommodations to achieve their academic goals, others fear that schools granting unnecessary accommodations can be harmful for students’ future job performance, the Atlantic reported.
Sophia Odato ’28, who told The Herald that she does not receive accommodations, said 18% of Brown students receiving accommodations was “about what (she) would have guessed.”
“A lot of my friends have them, so I just kind of thought more people would,” Odato said. “I’ve heard of some people swindling the system to kind of get what they want, but I’ve also heard of people who actually need them.”
“The process for obtaining accommodations is fairly straightforward,” Kropp said. “We work to make the process as easy as possible, and accommodation decisions are often made in a matter of days.”
Everett Mokarow ’28, who receives extra time and a low distraction environment when taking exams, thought that around 20-30% of students would receive accommodations.
“The process of getting accommodations was incredibly easy,” Mokarow wrote in a message to The Herald. “I had the doctor’s note already, and then I scheduled my appointment and they were incredibly helpful, quick and understanding.”
Sydney Riccio ’28, who does not receive accommodations, said “a lot of the people who did try gaming the system didn’t succeed.”
“I think people would benefit from having the whole system be a little bit more transparent,” Riccio added. “I think that would also mitigate the gamification of it all.”
Tiffany Tsui ’28, who told The Herald she does not receive accommodations, thought that the number of students receiving accommodations would be between 15 and 20%. She said she has heard of students who have claimed they needed accommodations “just to get better housing.”
“I think a lot of people think accommodations are a ‘hack’ to get better grades,” Mokarow wrote. “But in most cases they really are required.”
“A key point is that the disability accommodations process is ‘interactive,’ meaning the student initiates the process by requesting accommodations and meeting with SAS,” Kropp wrote. The responsibility is on students to coordinate with faculty members about their accommodations, he added.
“SAS works to understand and support students with disabilities by reviewing documentation and meeting with them to learn about the barriers they face and the accommodations they need,” Kropp added.
Nate Barkow is a senior staff writer for the Youth and Education beat and a co-chief of The Herald's social media team. He is from New York City and plans on concentrating in International and Public Affairs and Education Studies. In his free time, he loves trying new restaurants and watching Survivor.
