Would patching the non-dominant eye help during the test-taking time? I know it’s not ideal but just thinking out loud.
Thank you but she experiences a lot of eye strain and fatigue, I think that is why she has to alternate but I am not an eye doctor, I just know she is very slow when she works and really struggles to get her work done. She is also exhausted a lot. She also has a very strong prescription for reading
I sent you a DM.
Thanks so much - I’m calling the school tomorrow. Hopefully we can at least get an answer so I can then figure out what to do …
I’m trying to weed through all the information you shared. Forgive me if I missed something. Many people have a dominant eye. How does the College Board know that her eyes do not track together? Is it based on a statement made by the doctor or was a test with a validating measurement provided?
Is she correctable (with glasses) to 20/20 in each eye? Does she have any amblyopia? Are you saying she is an alternating esotrope but her turn is only slight with her glasses? If so, this is probably why they want the tracking test.
You would be surprised. People get 504s for all kinds of things - many are valid but some are not. As is stated on their website, “visual disabilities often change over time.”
They ask for, “phorias, fusional ranges, depth perception, and visual accommodation measurements.” The documents may have indicated that, with her glasses on, her phoria/tropia, fusional ranges, depth perception and accommodation were within an acceptable range for the College Board.
As others have shared, she will need to meet with the disability office and see what they are willing to offer. She is not guaranteed the accommodations she was given in HS or on the ACT. If this is a game changer, I would *research which schools are easier to work with before she applies.
We assumed 6-8 weeks was the usual amount of time and didn’t mind it. But guidance counselors should probably be telling people to allow that much time.
Has she seen a neuro-optometrist?
Hallelujah. College Board finally approved S24 for accommodations after a 9 week wait. Got most of what we wanted and will take PSAT10 at school this weekend. Glad to be done with this process for now.
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I appreciate the responses unfortunately this has become less about whether our documentation was or was not adequate and more about that it took many months to get a response. At this point, even if I had taken her to a doctor when the decision came back, by the time I got the report the APs would be over! The failure to get any response months on end is the issue. To be honest, if the extra time is not available by the APs, I do not need it. She is not planning on taking the SATs. At this point, it is simply not worth it to me to spend $$$$ on a neuropsych evaluation if this is not something she needs medically. A tracking test would have been relatively cheap even without insurance and if they had told me to do it at the prior denial I would have.
I appreciate any comments you have. To address the question, her vision with glasses exhibits a XX PD right esotropia at near and distance (it is under 20 but not close enough to achieve fusion). Her diagnosis is hyperopia and esotrropia. Her old report from when she was small and the current one from 2021 state clearly that she has no binocular vision and she alternates her focus, shutting off the vision.
I am not sure how they can make an independent determination on that especially when she has no depth perception (as stated in the doctor’s report and has not had fusion since she was a baby. The eye doctor recommended the accommodations. As for seeing a neurological optometrist, no one has recommended that and I have seen a bunch of different eye doctors. From the website you included it is more for TBI which is not her issue. She did see a prominent center based optometry group as a preschooler (they ended up referring her back to the ophthalmologist) and I got them from a friend who used them for a TBI for an adult. They tried vision therapy but it did not help.
How do I research this?
@Auntlydia Congratulations
I’m so sorry you still have to go through this! But I agree we will all have to research how well prospective colleges handle disabilities. The problem is all these schools have an office of disability that sounds perfectly fine on paper but may be awful in practice.
And post-script to our story: son was granted his accommodations but because it was so last minute, no-one at his school told him where to go tomorrow for his testing room for the PSAT. So it’s gonna be a total scramble.
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My reply about neuro optometry was to someone else.
You *research it just like you *research anything else about a college. Google “Good Colleges for Students with Disabilities.” Reach out to disabilities offices in advance. Ask what type of documentation they request and what types of accommodations they can provide. Talk to students with disabilities who have gone to those colleges.
I know you’ve put the CB response aside but she may hit a similar push back from colleges if she tries to apply with the same diagnoses and verbiage. Make sure she gets current, up to date information. It is common for visual disorders to change over time. Many people are hyperopic so that diagnosis alone won’t help. Saying that she had something since she was a baby or since she was in preschool won’t matter. In fact, if she has been an alternating trope since birth, they may determine that it is long standing and deny accommodations for that reason. Again, best corrected visual acuity, anisometropia and level of amblyopia will probably be important. Get the tracking test. It sounds like that is the missing piece to help her get the accommodations she needs in college.
The most important thing about college accommodations…in my opinion…the student must be a strong advocate for themselves. There won’t be a case manager informing the professors about accommodations all the time. Students really need to advocate for themselves a lot more than in HS.
I agree…reach out to schools of interest when you feel comfortable doing so…and ask them what they need to provide the accommodations your student requires. I hope this all works out for you!
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Yes her disability is not based on hyperopia but the strabismus. Although I am finding as my presbyopia increases I have more trouble using both eyes together, I also find the longer I work reading the worse my vision gets but in both situations that is me, not her. In her case t is the strabismus that is the issue. Lots of people have hyperopia and they can see in 3D, she cannot. The hyperopia when she was small caused the esotropia (the first doctor did not put in her glasses when she should have but that is only in hindsight) but it is the esotropia that is the problem
My concern with schools is what if she wants to ED? and anyway many schools will not meet with you about disabilities until you accept. A friend’s daughter who transferred recently had that. She had accommodations at her old school, she had to accept before the disabilities office would talk to her. She eventually got everything but it was still nerve-wracking until it happened
My suggestion would be to start a new thread in College Search and Selection and ask.
For example:
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I believe it is pretty hard to assess the quality of accommodations before acceptance and in some cases, after acceptance.
Much of the help is not through the Office of Disabilities, which in my opinion serves more as a filter: someone used the term “guard dog of the curriculum.”
Deans can help, doctors can help. Basically the student gets letters from the Office of Disabilities to give to the professors, and has to talk with them. The letter may or may not list accommodations (In three schools in our experience the letters just stated that the student had registered). The diagnosis won’t be known by the professors either, unless the student tells them or they make the effort to look in the file.
We chose schools based on the usual, cost, location, size, academics, and “vibe” and then made accommodations work. Most Office of Disabilities want to deal only with the student. It can take awhile to figure out how things work at each school.
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This….and thus my suggestion that self advocacy needs to be well learned….and used.
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I know it’s late for the upcoming AP tests, but I second the suggestion to get an IEP for the future. The testing companies and the colleges themselves are not legally obligated to grant accommodations based on 504 or IEP plans. However, in many others’ experiences, an IEP carries more weight than a 504. Some people have to threaten to retain counsel, or actually get a lawyer to get what they need, without alienating the teachers! There is an EXCELLENT website to help with this called wrightslaw.com
One of our children was offered a 504 plan when an IEP was justified. The 504 was offered in part to placate, and to avoid the considerable effort that would be required to do the IEP. He didn’t really need most of the services in the IEP, and the 504 would have met his needs at the time, but we knew an IEP had more teeth and would offer him more protection. We had to do a ton of work to get it in place years ago, and we’re so glad we did. He has not needed many of the services, but the older he gets, the more I think that having just a 504 could have been a disaster. As his courses get harder he is needing more services.
He is still in middle school and when his school gave the PSAT this year, all we had to do was sign a form his teacher gave us, and the College Board approved it easily! His special ed teacher took care of the whole thing. I do NOT think that would have happened with a 504. He also has a new extra diagnosis just this week and the psychologist emphasized the importance of getting everything rock solid in his IEP in preparation for high school and college. She put the necessary language in her report to facilitate that. Best of luck to everyone who has kids that really need these accommodations and are having trouble getting them!
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My S got accomodations throughout school and these are the steps we took before he started college:
–We did a complete neuropsych evaluation (I believe) towards the end of his junior year in HS. This helped us to feel comfortable with where he was applying and insured that we had a recent report to show colleges.
–Once we were down to decision time and visiting his top few colleges he was admitted to we made an appointment to visit the Office of Learning Disabilities during our revisit of the schools. We showed them his history of his accomodations and most recent evaluation – each school informally said that he would have no issue continuing his accomodations at their college (and he had no issue in the school he attended). They also explained the process of getting accomodations to our son (basically all had the same system). In addition, we looked at the room/space where students would be taking any exams given by the Office of Disabilities (was one of many ways professors would accomodate extra time). This was helpful as one school had a room for exams next to a noisy boiler so that was definitely a negative!
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An IEP is not appropriate for everyone. For instance, medical issues like type 1 diabetes. We have found that 504 plans worked fine. The presence of IEP versus 504 wasn’t relevant at the college level, either.
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There are no IEPs in college.
In general the IEP is for specific learning disabilities while the 504 plans can be broader in scope.
But we digress…