Feeling guilty about reasonable adjustments

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For all of my education so far I received no extra support or help since I only got my diagnosis a few months back, almost a year after graduating with a BSc. Throughout school I was able to just about scrape by with good marks, making myself appear academically strong even though I often wasn't. And at university, since getting a 1st Class mark only required getting 70%, I again just about scraped through: After getting a borderline 2:1/1st after my final exams, my university decided to round it up to a 1st Class degree.

However I'm now looking to apply for medical school, and with my diagnosis in hand, I'm eager to access all the help I can get because simply scraping through won't be good enough anymore. My autism service wrote me a letter confirming that my diagnosis means I'm entitled to reasonable adjustments in education, including getting extra time in exams. A few weeks ago I did my medical entrance exam for which I received extra time, and I did really well in it. Then today, a friend of mine did their entrance exam, without extra time, and did really badly in it. Now I'm feeling really guilty about getting extra time, and doing better than them, especially because I know that without the extra time, I would have done equally badly. I feel guilty because I want to get into medical school because I deserve it, not because I happened to get extra time in the exam.

But I'm also feeling awful because after all this time of fighting on my own, I'm now suddenly feeling useless having to depend on help. I know that I won't be able to make it without additional help, but maybe it's a bit of a pride thing that I want to feel like I'm succeeding because I'm fully capable of it, and not solely because of any reasonable adjustments/ assistance I'm getting along the way - and right now I'm just not feeling like that :/

Anyway I feel like I'm rambling on now. More than anything I needed to vent, but any advice or pointers anyone might have would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

What is it about your condition the means you need the extra time?

It takes me longer to process information, partly because I'm a really good visual thinker which means that spoken and written language take a bit of a back seat when it comes to understanding explanations and instructions.

In lessons/ exams I've always struggled with being able to keep up and finish on time. In exams especially I always knew that I would for example not have time to plan my answers, so I would write whatever came to mind rather than trying to establish a coherent, structured response because I was so worried about running out of time and not being able to finish - which often ended in me missing key pieces of the question. In the entrance exam I would have never been able to answer all the questions without the extra time.

I'm not in medical school, but I use extra time.

Just remember: You have a diagnosis, and a qualified person wrote a letter to justify your need for extra time. That means you really do need it. If your friend needs extra time too and turns to you for advice/help, then offer what help/advice you can give. After all, you've gone through the process before, so you have some idea what it's like. Also, if you need help on exams, that's fine. When you really start working in the medical feild, you're not going to be taking exams as a profession.