Special considerations for depression?

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If you do qualify for special consideration, you're looking at around 1-2% extra marks. Its not going to make Cs into As, you still need to work your butt off. Even the death of a parent on the day of the exam only gets you the maximum of 5% extra marks.

I dont really see how its that disabling, my attendance dipped to 60% due to personal reasons and I still managed to get AAAB, I just taught myself. Memorising information only requires self discipline, not emotional fulfilment

I'm sure you can.

But will employers give you extra time? Learning to do the same exams as everyone else is essential.

Everyone has their problems, it doesn't mean extra time should be given for everything e.g. a lack of disorganisation.

I'm not saying depression isn't an illness just that you have to face life as it comes. Deal with it.

Depression can be just as debiliating as a physical illness depending on the severity. Employers, schools, Universities and exam boards alike all recognise this and are all required under the disability discrimination act to make special arrangements. Therefore yes - employers would give the OP extra time if they were actively struggling with depression. But the OP is what, 17ish? So the chances of them being recovered from this by the time that they get to employement stage is high.

OP - yes this is possible. But I advice you get help and support with your depression from your GP and additional support from your school/college with the academic side of things. It is a fair amount of time until exams and you have enough time to improve your mental health and work on your school work. There is a LOT of support out there for people in your position, your school should be able to help you find it. If you're willing to work hard to overcome depression and do well then you should be able to. It is, however, important that you recognise that your health should come before your studies. If a better option for you would be to take a year out and restart this year in a years time when you're better then do that, if it's better to drop down to 2 a levels then do that. Do whats best for you.

I never pretended it wasn't a real illness. I have friends who suffer from it and it's ruined their lives.

I do however see it as a different sort of thing than say Muscular dystrophy, diabetes or cancer. As it is something that people can take control of. I know this is politically unocorrect (sorry).

I have had major anxiety but I don't think I deserved extra time. An exam tests your ability to deal with the whole process, uncluding the stress. It measures your potential/hardwork/good luck against everyone else in the country.

Yes it's true some people can. But it's also equally true that some people can't.

If you can't do an exam because of depression then you can't do an exam. At some point you WILL stop gettting extra consideration. Then how will someone cope.

But at some point they'll also get better.

If they don't get better, and their depression was that severe, they most likely wouldn't attempt to go into employment anyway, rather long-term treatment.

If they do get better, should their life really be affected by a poor grade due to an illness that is more than likely beyond their control? People don't chose to become depressed. People who are depressed sometimes chose to stay depressed rather than recover, but that is part of depression itself.

Thankfully though, exam boards don't think like you, and do treat mental illnesses like any other illness and award special consideration.

Thankfully though, exam boards don't think like you, and do treat mental illnesses like any other illness and award special consideration.

But surely the exam board should mark all papers equally and leave it to the individual to declare their issue in their reference/CV etc? Why bother completely falsifying their exam mark in order to make them seem better than a non-depressed candidate who scores the same mark as them in the exam? At the end of the day, if the depressed person and a mentally well candidate both receive 79% unadjusted (B,B), but the depressed person gets his mark scaled up to 81% (i.e. an A), all the employer will see is that one person got a higher grade than the other; this just isn't fair.

Except that having depression effects their performance. So they're not giving them an unfair, higher grade than they deserve - they're giving them what they should get and would have got if they hadn't become ill.

If someone became ill with a long-term physical illness they get special consideration. There is no logical reason why this should be different for a mental illness, which can be just as debilitating and sometimes more so. Evidence from doctors and schools supporting the applicants request for special circumstances is required, and as I said, thankfully people with more of an understanding than some of you make these decisions and are aware of how debilitating depression can be. I don't think any of you really have an issue of special circumstances meaning extra marks are added, just that depression is considered a special circumstance? Which suggests ignorance rather than anything else. Depression is not just feeling sad.