The Accommodations Surge: What We Need to Know and What We Can Do About It

This article originally appeared in The Bar Examiner print edition, Fall 2026 (Vol. 95, No. 3), pp. 19–24.By Rebecca Mick

The numbers have become impossible to ignore. Of the 7,362 California bar exam takers in July 2025, 14% received testing accommodations—compared to 4% ten years prior. In Washington DC, the figure similarly exceeded 14%. Illinois provided 13% of July 2025 takers with accommodations; the share was 2% ten years ago. Georgia saw the rate rise to 7% from 2% over a comparative time frame. A Wall Street Journal analysis published in April 2026 documented these figures and noted that approximately 97% of all bar exam accommodations for California’s February 2025 exam were for extended time.1

These numbers did not emerge from a sudden increase in ­disabilities among the examinee population. They result from a transformation in how American educational institutions—from high school through law school—think about and provide testing accommodations.2 Understanding the origins of this transformation, and what it means for the bar exam, is the first step toward creating a more uniform strategy for handling accommodations requests.

The Surge

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)’s 2008 amendments broadened the definition of “disability” to ensure that individuals with real but not physically visible conditions—ADHD, anxiety, and learning disorders, for example—are included in the protections of the law. Over the past decade, the proportion of college students identifying as disabled and requiring accommodations has grown dramatically, driven almost entirely by these “invisible” disabilities; physical disability rates have remained relatively stable.3 There is much discussion and speculation about what is causing the rise in accommodations. According to Dr. Benjamin J. Lovett, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, the rise in accommodations requests stems from several factors, including acknowledgment of anxiety among young people; a cultural change in attitudes toward disability accommodations (a diminishing of that stigma); and the emergence of an industry dedicated to providing documentation to students for real or perceived cognitive accommodations. In his Bar Examiner article on accommodations and examinees with anxiety, Lovett acknowledges that this final factor is speculative, but he points to advertisements from psychology practices that appeal to prospective clients with messages suggesting that an SAT score can determine one’s future, and that securing the highest possible score with accommodations is thus worth the investment.4

This trend is apparent in law schools, where the percentage of law students receiving extra time has surpassed accommodation rates in primary and undergraduate education. Provision of extra time has become so widespread that it is essentially seen as a catchall accommodation in law school.5

The Role of AHEAD, the DOJ Guidelines, and the “Student-Success Model”

When considering requests for accommodations, most academic institutions follow guidance from the Association on Higher Education and Disability. AHEAD’s most recent substantive guidance identifies three sources of documentation considered as part of accommodations applications: the student’s own self-report and narrative; a medical provider’s impressions based on observation; and clinical documentation. Critically, although AHEAD’s guidance states that “professional judgment is an essential component of this process,” it allows that a student’s narrative “may be sufficient for establishing disability and a need for accommodation.”6 There are also the Department of Justice’s guidelines on testing accommodations, which mirror AHEAD’s guidance. Arguably, the DOJ guidelines have more influence, as many stakeholders (including bar applicants) interpret them as a statement of law, but the guidelines themselves provide that they have “no legally binding effect” and “no force or effect of law.”7

The AHEAD and DOJ guidelines reflect a genuine commitment to access and inclusion; however, they also reflect a shift toward prioritizing student success and away from using a strict legal determination of a qualified individual with a disability under the ADA—what some colleagues in the professional licensing world have termed the “student-success model.” Disability services coordinators at most institutions are not medical professionals. They are not equipped to independently evaluate the adequacy of submitted clinical documentation or to assess students’ functional impairment in relation to the general population—the comparison the ADA requires.8 Faced with a student presenting a clinician’s letter and a documented history of prior accommodations, disability coordinators may choose the path of least resistance—and the one the DOJ and AHEAD’s guidance appears to encourage—and simply grant the request without further investigation. A 2022 survey of disability services providers found that they are inclined to follow AHEAD’s guidance and rely on student self-reports and general diagnosis rather than objective evidence of functional impairment. The survey also revealed that some schools offered more accommodations than requested by the student or their healthcare provider.9

The above isn’t a critique of the disability coordinators doing this important work. They are responding rationally to the incentive structures and guidance frameworks within which they operate. But it does mean that the “ADA accommodation” a student receives in college or law school often is not the product of the individualized, evidence-based determination the ADA requires. It is a ­student-success decision—generous and well intentioned but often untethered from a rigorous clinical assessment—that prioritizes ­student success over accommodating a disability to level the playing field.

What the ADA Actually Requires

The ADA defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of [the] individual.”10 According to the ADA regulations, an individual is “substantially limited” in performing such an activity if they are either: (1) unable to perform a major life activity that the average person in the general population can perform (e.g., walking); or (2) significantly restricted as to the condition, manner, or duration under which they can perform a particular major life activity as compared to the condition, manner, or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform that same major life activity (e.g., being able to walk only for brief periods of time).11 It is important to understand this distinction: Being diagnosed with a mental or physical impairment does not constitute a disability under the ADA if, as compared with the general population, the impairment does not substantially limit a person’s performance of a major life activity. For example, a student may have ADHD, anxiety, or a learning disorder and still not qualify as disabled under the ADA if the condition does not substantially limit a major life activity relative to most people. Further, a qualifying disability as defined by the ADA does not automatically entitle a student or examinee to any particular accommodation; rather, it entitles the student or examinee to a reasonable accommodation that removes any barriers to demonstrating the knowledge and skills being tested without fundamentally altering how that knowledge or those skills are measured. Likewise, a history of certain accommodations is considered but is not definitive under ADA assessment. The goal is to level the playing field, not to provide comfort or to maximize individual performance. For example, a law student with ADHD whose symptoms are well managed and who has performed successfully through years of competitive academic work may not be substantially limited in their ability to demonstrate knowledge and skills in an exam setting relative to most people. The ADA draws that distinction. Many institutional accommodation processes, however, do not.

The Problem with Extended Time

As noted above, the testing accommodation most frequently requested and granted is extended testing time. Research has revealed, however, that additional time does not necessarily address the underlying disability and, therefore, level the playing field. In fact, according to several studies, it may give students with certain learning disabilities a competitive advantage over their nondisabled peers.12

The theory behind granting extended time is what researchers call the “differential boost” hypothesis. In general, extra time should help students with disabilities more than it helps those without, thereby removing a disability-related barrier without conferring an advantage. But multiple peer-reviewed studies have failed to support this hypothesis. The research on extended-time accommodations is more complicated than it might seem. Nondisabled students tend to benefit from extra time at least as much as, and sometimes more than, disabled students, and larger extensions of time, such as 50% or 100%, can cause students with disabilities to outperform nondisabled peers testing under standard conditions. Researchers conclude that the predictive validity of test scores may be compromised when extended time is simply doled out as a “cure-all” accommodation for these types of disabilities.13

A Widening Gap of Understanding

The combination of generous institutional accommodation practices and empirically uneven defaults such as extended testing time creates thorny problems for the fairness of the bar exam. Typically, relevant students arrive at the bar exam application process with a history of accommodations not subject to rigorous ADA analysis, but they expect those accommodations to transfer automatically. When a jurisdiction’s bar examiners conduct the more careful, individualized review the ADA requires, those students—and sometimes their law schools—tend to experience the denial of accommodations as a denial of rights they previously had. This widening gap between applicant expectations and bar examiners’ requirements is a source of confusion and stress for all.

This widening gap between applicant expectations and bar examiners’ requirements is a source of confusion and stress for all.According to Dean Jason J. Jarvis’s 2026 law school survey, many schools reported that students who had accommodations throughout their educational careers were denied or received reduced accommodations on the bar exam. Several of these schools described helping students navigate the bar application process specifically to advocate for the continuation of accommodations that the school had granted the student. The gap between what schools grant and what bar examiners require has become a point of genuine friction between these institutions and real hardship for students who may have been misled about the transferability of their accommodations.14

The Wall Street Journal’s 2026 analysis documented another dimension of this gap: In California, 65% of those who received accommodations passed the bar in February 2025, compared to a 58% overall pass rate. This statistically significant gap in bar passage rates raises questions about not only the fairness of the bar exam but about the integrity of the test results. This is an issue that the profession needs to grapple with honestly.15

A Path Forward: Transparency and Individualized Assessment

The goal here is not to make obtaining accommodations overly burdensome. But a uniform bar exam requires some uniformity in how jurisdictions grant testing accommodations. The aim should be to impose a framework that is consistent with what the ADA actually requires. First, there should be an individualized, evidence-based determination by an expert clinician that the applicant has a condition that substantially limits a major life activity. Second, reasonable accommodations should be granted—rather than defaulting to extended time as a cure-all—based upon what will remedy that limitation without conferring an unfair advantage or undermining what the examination measures.

In furtherance of this goal, ­educational institutions should be transparent about what their accommodations represent. An accommodations letter from a university disability services office is arguably not an ADA determination. It is a student-success decision made by a coordinator operating within AHEAD’s framework. Students deserve to understand that distinction clearly during law school and especially as they prepare to take the bar exam. One practical approach would be for institutions to distinguish formally between “student-success accommodations” and ADA-compliant accommodations grounded in a comprehensive clinical assessment. That transparency would reduce the gap between student expectations and jurisdictional bar examiner requirements when starting the bar exam application process.

Law schools should help students understand bar exam requirements as soon as possible. Rather than waiting until students begin bar preparation, law schools should inform students from the start that many jurisdictions conduct independent expert reviews and that prior accommodations do not guarantee those same accommodations on the bar exam. Schools that offer support staff for bar applications might also encourage students to think through applying for accommodations with ADA regulations in mind, explaining how these regulations differ from student-success models and advising them about what documentation is needed to show the student’s current functional impairment and how the accommodation requested addresses that impairment. It is important to note that every applicant’s situation is different when it comes to diagnosis timing, healthcare history relevant to accommodations, and so on, and thus each must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Jurisdictions’ bar examiners should consider implementing processes based on expert, individualized review of accommodations requests if they do not already do so. The Georgia Board of Bar Examiners offers a streamlined pathway. Upon receiving a nonstandard testing accommodations request, Georgia staff review the application for completeness and forward it to an independent consulting firm specializing in testing accommodations. A licensed psychologist or neuropsychologist with expertise in both the relevant disability and the legal context of testing accommodations for the bar exam then reviews the clinical documentation, considers the pertinent history and evidence of functional impairment, and renders a written recommendation grounded in both the clinical literature and the law. The Georgia board provides applicants who are denied accommodations with a letter explaining in detail the reason for the denial and, in some cases, an explanation of what information is needed for reconsideration. Applicants may provide supplemental documentation to be reviewed by the same or additional experts.16

Accommodations decisions should be calibrated to reflect what the research supports.
If the empirical literature consistently suggests that 25% additional testing time is adequate for most cognitive disability–related impairments, and that more time frequently overcompensates, bar examiners and their expert consultants should use that evidence to inform their decisions.17 The goal of an accommodation is to level the playing field—not to provide a margin of comfort, and not to replicate a prior accommodation that was itself not calibrated to the individual’s actual impairment.

Conclusion

The surge in bar exam accommodations requests reflects a genuine tension in American disability law and practice. The ADA’s 2008 amendments broadened the definition of disability to ensure that individuals with real but invisible conditions have access to the same opportunities as everyone else. That is a goal worth honoring, and the legal profession should take it seriously.

But the resulting outlook in higher education that has emerged in response to those amendments has, in many settings, completely departed from what the law requires and seeks to protect. AHEAD’s student-success framework, while valuable in many respects, is not the ADA. DOJ guidance, while influential, is a policy interpretation and not binding law. And the research on extended time as an accommodation raises real questions about whether the defaults being applied are serving the ADA’s purposes or undermining them.

Jurisdictional bar examiners, alongside their jurisdictions’ highest courts, are well positioned to model what rigorous, individualized, and fair accommodations look like. The advent of the NextGen UBE offers an opportunity to build that model from the ground up—one that serves applicants with genuine disabilities, maintains the integrity of the examination, and is transparent with law schools and students about what the accommodations process requires.

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