Parents of wannabe Ivy Leaguers are enraged after discovering that other students have managed a quiet 'unfair' edge over their sons and daughters. 

For decades, students with medical and mental health disabilities have been granted extra time and special accommodations to complete SATs and ACTs, to 'level the playing field' with their peers.

But parents and students are now going to great lengths to get accommodations they may not need.

Anxiety, ADHD, irritable bowel syndrome, gluten intolerance, endometriosis and night terrors are among the 'disabilities' that have earned students accommodations at top high schools and universities. 

College admission consultant Laurie Kopp Weingarten told the Daily Mail that more and more parents ask her about accommodations each year. 

'The controversy centers more around concerns that, in some communities, accommodations may be pursued because families perceive extended time as a competitive advantage,' she said.

'I’ve heard parents describe the process as becoming a new form of “pay-to-play,” and I’ve also heard concerns about families “gaming” accommodations-particularly on time-sensitive exams such as the ACT,' Weingarten added. 

Dermatologist Adarsh Mudgil, whose daughter is now a student at the University of Virginia, said he discovered the trend while she was taking the ACT and blasted: 'It’s cheating. It puts our kids at a disadvantage.'

After taking the test accommodation-free, at least 60 students at his daughter's elite Long Island high school were granted extra time. 

He discussed the issue during an episode of his podcast last month entitled 'special accommodation or cheating?' 

He said many 'don't really fit the criteria to receive those accommodations but because they hired some private psychologist or private testing and paid $20,000 to get whatever documentation they need to receive special accommodation from the school district.

'All of these especial accommodations that students are receiving really is in my mind akin to cheating. It's cheating the system and it's not right.

'You don't have extra accommodations in the real world. We’re grooming a generation that is just not going to be capable of performing under pressure, and that’s a scary thought.' 

He added: 'Life is hard' and 'it should be hard.' He told people to think about whether they would want to fly in a plane where a pilot had been given extra time or had special allowances before getting into the cockpit.

In high school, the number of students taking accommodations on college entrance exams is climbing. 

While tests like the ACT require a 'demonstrated history' of accommodation needs or a customized curriculum, the number of students with accommodations rose from four percent to seven percent since 2013. 

The SAT, which is reportedly known to be more lenient, has seen a spike from two percent to six percent in the last decade.

Most colleges do not know whether or not a student received accommodations when they submit their scores. 

Exceptions often include having time and a half to complete tests, being allotted frequent bathroom breaks and taking the exam in a separate room. 

On his podcast Mudgil spoke about how Stanford University has 40 percent of students claiming a disability and called it 'egregious.'

Mudgil admitted some students do need the special accommodation but said 40 percent receiving a special accommodation is 'insane.'

'I think most families support accommodations for students who genuinely need them,' Weingarten added. 

Stanford University senior Elsa Johnson is one of those students to have registered with the Office of Accessible Education and is open about that fact that she found it so easy to do.   

'One of the most prestigious universities in the US offers perks to those who say they have ADHD, night terrors, even gluten intolerance,' Elsa Johnson wrote in The Times. 'You’d be stupid not to game the system.'

After hearing a peer had claimed a fake disability to be granted preferential housing, she registered her legitimate endometriosis diagnosis as a disability.

After a 30-minute Zoom meeting, Johnson said she was given more accommodations than she knew what to do with. 

'I was met with so little skepticism or questioning, I probably didn’t even need a doctor’s note to get these exemptions,' she said. 'Had I been pushier, I am sure I could have received almost any accommodation I asked for.'

She was granted extra absences and a 15-minute tardiness allowance, along with single housing in her dorm.

'Students claim “night terrors”; others say they “get easily distracted” or they “can’t live with others,"' she said. 'I know a guy who was granted a single room because he needs to wear contacts at night. I’ve heard of a girl who got a single because she was gluten intolerant.'

Because the system is so easy to 'game,' as Johnson put it, many students felt they had no choice but to take advantage of it.   

In a statement to the Daily Mail, a spokesperson for Stanford said recent reports of their relaxed accommodations policies had prompted the school to look inward at the way they report student data.

'We have determined that our previous practice did not accurately reflect the number of students who are actually receiving accommodations, and we plan to correct this in our IPEDS reporting moving forward,' Angie Davis said. 

'Moving forward, Stanford intends to amend the way in which it reports this data to IPEDS in order to accurately reflect the number of students who are in fact receiving academic accommodations as of each fall term,' she continued. 

'For example, for fall 2025, we would report that 12.5 percent of undergraduates were receiving academic accommodations, rather than 33.51 percent of undergraduates who completed an initial intake form with OAE.'

Stanford isn't the only top-tier school with this issue. 

A Yale psychology and cognitive science professor told the Atlantic that students at his school are 'incentivized' to take advantage of any accommodations they can get.  

'We know that people will act as they are incentivized to act,' Brian Scholl said. 

'And the students are absolutely incentivized to have as many extra accommodations as they can under any circumstances.'

A cognitive science professor at Brown told the Atlantic that accommodations hindered results from accurately reflecting a student's true abilities.

'If we want our grades to be meaningful, they should reflect what the student is capable of,' Steven Sloman said. 

'Once they’re past Brown and off in the real world, that’s going to affect their performance.'

According to the Brown Daily Herald, more than 18 percent of students receive some form of accommodations for their exams or housing. 

Professors, like University of Chicago Physics Professor Juan Collar, have found that the drastic number of accommodations is creating a vast imbalance in the student population. 

The Chicago Maroon reported that 13 percent of the student population registered with the Student Disability Service.

'I feel for the students who are not taking advantage of this,' Collar said. 'We have a two-speed student population.'

Many people with legitimate disabilities reported feeling guilty about taking advantage of the allowances that were handed to them. 

An anonymous high school student who was diagnosed with Asperger's disorder posted to Reddit asking, 'Should I feel bad about my extended time?'

'I am not trying to game the system though,' he wrote. 'I really do think I need extra time. But part of me thinks that my high scores are just because of the extended time. 

'Am I justified in getting the extended time? At this point, I don't know myself.'

Professors on social media are asking the same questions of their students. 

On a Reddit page for anonymous professors, one educator said accommodations were 'turning increasingly into academic advantages.'

'It's gotten ridiculous,' they wrote. 'This semester, I had one student who was allowed a “word bank” on any in-class exam. Another was allowed a 4x6 card, handwritten front and back.'

Another said in their advanced classes, at least one third of students had been granted accommodations. 

'It's certainly not a big deal for me to accommodate this, but I am confused as to why this is so common,' they said. 

'Especially since at my previous institution, I never had more than one or two students in a class who needed any sort of accommodation.'

CEO of the Association of Higher Education and Disability, Katy Washington, told Fortune that the increase in disability accommodations was actually a positive thing. 

'For decades, students with invisible disabilities were denied support because their struggles were dismissed as laziness or lack of effort,' she said. 

'The rise in accommodations reflects a cultural shift toward acknowledging mental health, not a decline in academic integrity.'