Why?

Consider a student X, who we met months back. This student was working at a 161V and 155Q, and was struggling to move past that. We looked at her case and it turned out that she was suffering from diagnosed anxiety which was impacting her performance. As a result, she was eligible for accommodations, and indeed got it after application, with 25% extra time and 30 minutes breaks (which we’ll explain later on). 

With little extra work on verbal, she moved to a sectional best of 170V. Seriously - all she did was apply for the accommodations.

With significant extra work, she was able to finally break the “155” rut in quant, moving eventually to a 161Q. It was clear to us that without these accommodations, she wouldn’t have gotten the scores she needed. 

We’ve unfortunately also seen many less-fortunate students that were eligible for accommodations but didn’t know they existed, made faulty assumptions, or didn’t have any testing documentation at all. With all of them, it was too late for them to start the process as they needed to take the test soon. This is why we now remind students at the start of each study plan, and is the basis for this post. 

Common incorrect statements

As a tutor, we’ve seen all kinds of incorrect statements students make regarding getting accommodations. Here are some:

• “Schools will know that I took the test with extra time” - no. This used to be the case like 30 years back, but disability laws (such as the ADA for those in the US) meant that the tests had to stop reporting such data to schools. To reiterate, no school will know that you took the test with extra time or whatever. 

• “I don’t want to feel advantaged” - think of it this way: you have a disability and the accommodation is an equaliser for you to be able to perform your best just like anyone else.

• “I never had accommodations in the past” - this is OK. There is no rule saying that you must have had accommodations at school or college, and it is recognised that some students never had the chance to get diagnosed as a child. 

• “My problem is not extra time, I need breaks as focusing is my problem” - ETS provides that anyway. 

• And of course, this is applicable worldwide.

And you can get accommodations irrespective of whether you’re at the test centre or at home (barring some rare exceptions). 

Type of accommodations

The most common one is obviously extra time. Usually this is 25%, so you’ll have 25% more time to complete each section (so instead of 18 minutes for verbal section 1, you’ll get 22 ½ minutes instead). This can also be 50% (or in rare cases, 100%) - the extra time will depend on your individual circumstance. Note that just like the real test, you are not obligated to use all the time and can move on earlier if you want.

Usually, you also get extra breaks bundled with extra time (for things such as anxiety or ADHD). What that means is that during the test, you’ll see an additional button called “take break”. Click it and the test timer stops. Note that you cannot use this to write anything on the scratchpad or see any questions, but you can go outside if you want. When you get your accommodation approval letter, it will say something like “30 minutes break”. What that means is that you can take as many breaks as you want, but you cannot spend more than 30 minutes in total on breaks. 

These two are the most common accommodations we’ve seen with students. However, it is possible to go even further - in fact you can even take the GRE on paper (i.e, a traditional non-adaptive test) if you wanted to and if your accommodations supported such a request. ETS actually published one: https://www.ets.org/pdfs/gre/paper-delivered-test-practice-book.pdf (spoiler: the test is based on online PP2). 

Getting the accommodations

The main application form and details is at https://www.ets.org/pdfs/gre/bulletin-supplement-test-takers-with-disabilities-health-needs-2024-25.pdf. Parts 1 and 2 of the form apply to all, irrespective of how you're claiming eligibility.

This will depend on your individual situation. Here are some very straightforward cases:

• Do you already have accommodations for the GRE? They are almost always valid - just go ahead and register. If you already registered and then got your accommodations approved, it will not retrospectively apply, but changing your date would be enough for the accommodations to apply.

• Do you already have accommodations for a similar test such as SAT or GMAT? You simply need to forward that test’s approval letter to ETS - documentation is not required. It also works the other way round.

The next case is when you already had accommodations in college (or equivalent, include post-baccs common in the US). Then, 

• if you are still in college and

  • have ASD, ADHD, TBI (traumatic brain injury), physical or mental disability, and

  • are requiring 50% or less of extra time and/or extra breaks, and

  • have experience using similar accommodations at university, 

you do not need to submit testing documentation - just submit Part III of ETS’s disability form instead.

• If you are not enrolled in college, you will normally need to submit full testing documentation, unless you are working and you have experience using similar accommodations at work (which is usually not the case from experience). 

The last case is the most complex, and involves cases where you have to submit full testing documentation. What does that mean? 

• First, this can’t be by you - self-diagnosis, self-medication or internet diagnosis will get you nowhere.

• A therapist may be OK in some cases, but is unlikely to qualify for ADHD. This is because ETS requires testing documentation, which therapists don’t tend to do.

Unfortunately, if you never started this process before, it can be expensive and take some time (which is why we recommend starting as early as possible). It is just as important to discuss with your doctor about what accommodations you need (eg: 25% or 50% extra time) - don’t be shy about requesting more time if you and your doctor think that is required. 

In other words, the documentation needs to 

• be professional - from a psychiatrist for instance for a mental disability or anxiety

• be recent - usually within the last year (or five years in some cases such as ADHD). If you have valid documentation that is not recent, you don’t need to start from square one - ETS has the details. 

• actually answer what ETS wants. This is important and pretty much the most important thing of this whole blog post. We’ve seen letters from doctors and other qualified professionals that straight-up wouldn’t pass ETS muster. ETS has a guide on what documentation they want for a certain disability - it’s at https://www.ets.org/disabilities/evaluators/documentation.html. Follow that to the letter. Cross-check that whatever documentation you have matches what ETS wants. This has two benefits:

  • it can help speed-up approval (we’ve seen people get their approval in three days), and 

  • it minimises the chance of ETS asking for more evidence (which is how they’ll waste your time, because the clock starts all over again). 

Using the accommodations

Now that you’ve gotten the accommodations, how do you apply it in your practice? For full practice tests, just adapt whatever we said with extra time. 

When you launch an ETS practice test, you’ll be given an opportunity to select any accommodations at the first page. The process continues as normal after that (unless you’re in the rare group that requires specialist screen software, in which case you’ll be directed to download a special software). If this is Big Book or a paper test, just do that manually.

If it is with our GregMAT Full Practice Tests, the process works the same way, except that we do not support extra breaks yet; such students will need to select untimed and time themselves manually - this is something we plan to fix.