I made a post on here a while ago saying how uncanny the posts were to describing me near perfectly. I struggled with this disorder for 30 years. Nerfing myself for 30 years. Not being the best husband to my wife for 6 years. Not the best father to my son for nearly 2 years. All without knowing it.
I have now been on 20mg XR Adderall for a little over 3 months - it has been absolutely life changing.
I'm more attentive. Things are much more easily committed to memory. Menial tasks no longer feel like a huge burden anymore. I can actually read a page in a book I'm interested in without completely forgetting what I've read by the end of the page. I've had a small, but annoying headache for years every single day - chalked it up to genetics as my mom has a disorder than can cause the same thing. The headaches are gone. I can only assume they were brought on by the stress.
Gang, if you're at all considering you might have some form of ADD/ADHD, please go see your doctor. I had a thousand reasons why I didn't want to/need to go beforehand, but I'm so very glad I finally did.
I would say go for it if you're able to. Productivity isn't a binary, so you may well cope at university even if you don't get assessed for ADHD. However, university is a path with many challenges for people with ADHD.
Many of my friends from university have ADHD, and amongst them are people who:
I know a couple people from that last category who didn't have a diagnosis, so it certainly isn't a necessary thing for being productive at university. It depends on the person, and it's hard to predict in advance. Likewise, having a diagnosis doesn't necessarily guarantee success. It can certainly help set you up as best as you can though.
In addition to things like medication, universities have loads of stuff they can do to support students with ADHD. I had extended library loans, without which I would have probably racked up loads of late fees. One friend was a productivity powerhouse, and didn't feel it necessary to tell the university about her ADHD at first, but when bereavement caused her routines and structures to become more fragile, she found it useful to be able to use her ADHD to explain why the disruption had hit her especially hard, getting her more leniency with missed deadlines.
If you feel like you're likely to get a diagnosis if you spring for the assessment, I think it's worth going for if you're able to, to help keep your options open and set you up better for success. Maybe you'd get by okay without a diagnosis, but if it were me, I'd always be wondering about whether I could have been better than okay.