Applying for a PhD as a disabled person: apply for preferential access?

Question

I am about to apply for a PhD position at a European university as an EU citizen.

I suffer from a physical disability. As such, I have the right to apply for preferential access due to my disability through the Executive Order on Compensation for Disabled People.

Should I apply for preferential access or not? I would not want to get in the situation where I am accepted merely due to my disability. On the other hand, I read about disabled prospective students without such right being concerned about the disability actually hurting their chances to get accepted.

Answer 1

In Germany, the situation is like this: as a disabled person, an employer is supposed to hire you preferentially if you have the same qualification / suitability as a non-disabled candidate. So, according to this rule, you will not be hired "just because" of your disablility, but because you are a genuinely qualified candidate. Also, if a disabled person is among those applying to a position, a disability advocate has to be part of the hiring process to, well, advocate for the diabled candidate and to prevent biased hiring decisions. So listing your disability should not have negative consequences.

I would suggest to take advantage of the laws and list your disability, as it will probably improve your chances to get a PhD position.

Answer 2

I would not want to get in the situation where I am accepted merely due to my disability.

I say you should appeal.

It's a matter of opinion if being accepted because of your disability is good or bad. In my opinion, it is good. Whoever made the rules thought it was good.

For the typical PhD applicant, a crucial question is: Can I afford to get a PhD? The pay is bad compared to other options. A lot of PhDs only got their degree because they started out with financial advantages. I know I did. (Financial advantages include having low expenses.) Nobody would say they did not want to be able get a PhD simply because they had more money than people who cannot get a PhD.

Every PhD student has some special situation. I do not know what your situation is, but I don't think you should think it is bad to take advantage of it unless you have a really good reason.

I might add more detail if you provided a link to this order.

Answer 3

Having a disability likely limits your options in terms of employment. With a physical disability, there might be many jobs that you are unable to do, particularly those that require physical labor. If a prospective PhD student without a physical disability is rejected from all the programs to which they apply, they likely have more options than you: they could take a job packing boxes to support themselves for a year and apply for PhD programs the following year. You might not be able to take such jobs. This is one of the reasons that preferential acceptance to academic programs exists: people with disabilities have fewer options to put food on the table. You may be comfortable right now, but in the future you may have more difficulty finding employment and supporting yourself than someone without a disability. It's not you are completely helpless and have no options, it is simply that your disability is recognized as reducing (however slightly) your employment options compared to a non-disabled person.

Hence, I think you should not feel ashamed to accept this preferential status.

Answer 4

My suggestion is that it would depend on whether the nature of the disability could affect the outcome of your degree process in any way. A physical disability might not matter in the least. Or it might, if it made access to some venues (much) more difficult. Or if it made interacting with a computer a slow and difficult process.

I believe that some European degree programs have time limits. Some difficulties might make that an issue. Inability to speak or to hear or to see might be an issue, though that might be something to be worked out with a supervisor. (I once had a blind math professor - his lectures at the chalkboard were a bit weird but he managed)

It might be worth having a conversation with the office that manages such things as to the likelihood of the disability being an actual difficulty in completing. If it is, then putting the university on notice that accommodations are necessary would be a good thing.

But, I'm more concerned about the ability to finish in a timely way than the ability to get accepted. Ideally (though we don't live in an ideal world) a disability shouldn't have an affect on admissions other than in a field in which the disability would prevent necessary action/participation.

Answer 5

Disability is not only about your current situation. It is also about future implications of future adverse events.

Disability is a safety margin: if you have a recognized disability, it means that you may be fully functional, but you are closer to being partially functional. Losing hear capabilities from one ear is not a big problem, unless I have already one functioning ear only.

Hiring you in the "people with disability" quota is a safety measure for your employer, too: if you have an accident and you require extended time out of work, they are covered by special agreements with insurer/welfare system.

Answer 6

This is a question with a number of layers, and ultimately there is no 'right answer'.

First, there are the legal provisions. Details will probably vary between countries and between institutions, but in general the law will stipulate that an individual with a declared disability has priority where two (or more) candidates are equally well-qualified. Unfortunately, in academic contexts this is somewhat meaningless: ranking candidates is inherently subjective, and it is always possible to find reasons why Candidate A is "better" than Candidate B. It would be unusual for a well-briefed committee to end up in a position where the disability laws determine the result.¹

Second, there may be various other policies that come into play. For example, in the UK it is common for employers to guarantee an interview to any candidate who declares a disability and meets the basic requirements of the role. This may improve your chances, especially if you think you come across better in interview than you do on paper. On the other hand, you may waste time and energy if you are called for interview in circumstances where you're clearly uncompetitive.

Third, many institutions and individuals are increasingly focussed on EDI and access issues, and contextual information may be considered (formally or informally) during hiring/admissions decisions. Disclosing a disability may sway the committee in your favour, especially if you end up neck-and-neck with some other, non-disabled, candidate.² On the other hand, you open yourself up to the possibility of negative discrimination: given the subjectivity of the process, a (consciously or unconsciously) biased committee member will be able to find a defensible reason to argue against offering you the position.

Fourthly, there are human factors. In your question, you write "I would not want to get... accepted merely due to my disability". Is this something that is going to prey on your mind every time your hit a rough patch in your research? Will you worry that your supervisor never really wanted to take you on? Only you know the answer to those kinds of questions.

Ultimately, there isn't a clear answer to your question: there are arguments both for and against disclosure at the application stage,³ especially if your disability does not directly impact the things that the committee will be assessing you on. Note that you can make different choices in different applications: for example, you might decide to take one approach when applying for a programme that recruits 10 people from 200 applicants, and another when applying for a position that will recruit one person from 20 applicants.

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¹ An exception might be some very large schemes, such national PhD funding competitions covering a wide range of subjects, where there may be more reliance on ranking candidates according to some numerical score (e.g. GPA).

² This is not quite the same as the first case: you would not be chosen because the law says so, but rather because the committee felt your achievements deserved to be given a higher weight by virtue of the additional challenges you have faced.

³ You can always disclose your disability later in the process, e.g. upon being called to interview or after appointment.