<p>Is it beneficial for a student to mention disability during admission? (overcoming difficulties, unique prospective, life experience, etc.)?</p>
<p>Or is it a red flag for a college (student needs extra support)? </p>
<p>Disability is not learning-related. It is a heart disease. May explain the absolute lack of athletic achievements on the resume. The student won’t need any additional testing accommodations, or learning accommodation; with the possible exception of PE. </p>
<p>Plenty of kids don’t have athletic accomplishments on their applications. This seems worth a discussion with your guidance counselor.</p>
<p>Our guidance counselor … OK, I don’t want to use foul words. She is mainly preoccupied with endless forms and failing students. </p>
<p>My sons both are deaf. They listen and speak thanks to bilateral cochlear implants. Both chose to write their essays about the decision to go forward with surgery and how their surgeries changed things for them. Both felt that if their hearing loss was a red flag for a college, it was a place they wouldn’t have wanted to attend. My older son is not at all interested in any kind of team sports but didn’t feel a need to explain that.</p>
<p>@BTMell, Thanks for sharing! Best wishes to your sons. </p>
<p>Thanks! They both ended up with good college matches for themselves and are happy and engaged. My older son has the lead in the spring slotted play that’s opening next weekend. He’s happily stressed for sure.</p>
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<p>This should not hurt the student.</p>
<p>If she won’t need accommodations of any kind, I don’t think it is relevant unless it has affected her life to the extent where she might want to write an essay about it. I’ve never heard that colleges place particular emphasis on athletic involvement unless the student is good enough to be recruited; otherwise, it is just another EC. </p>
<p>On the overcoming obstacles my son wrote his essay about how he learned to play guitar lefty because of a neurological condition that causes weaknesses with fine motor skills. He even mentioned playing guitar hero and how it lets you choose righty and lefty. He got in his first choice school and it was mentioned in his acceptance letter so I assume they were okay with it. The important part is to strike the right tone. My son has never felt sorry for himself and the essay was interesting to read through the thought process and effort to learn how to play guitar.</p>
<p>eyemamom, thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t think she needs to use it to “explain away” her lack of athletics or whatever. I have hearing issues and was mostly deaf throughout part of my childhood. I didn’t choose to write about it because it, personally, isn’t a huge focus of mine. OTOH, I know people that have written about their physical “limitations” because it is a significant part of their life and it is something that they care deeply about. I know a girl who has been in a wheelchair since birth and never mentioned it because she chose to write about something completely different that she was passionate about. </p>
<p>If she feels strongly about this and it is something she WANTS to write about, have at it. The essays shouldn’t be “excuse” essays though- they should showcase her talent, passion, intelligence, whatever- not explaining a perceived deficiency. As mentioned before, plenty of people don’t play sports, even very healthy ones, and still get accepted to great schools.</p>
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<p>Also an excellent point. </p>
<p>Some schools do have PE graduation requirements.
But otherwise it shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t need accomodations.</p>
<p>My Ds school does have a PE requirement, but students that can’t participate in regular offerings have a class where they meet with trainer/coach who designs an appropriate program for them - so even PE requirements shouldn’t hold OP back.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the disability and how the student feels about it, too. D has a long history of language delay and articulation disorders and continues to have a lot of problems with dysfluency (stuttering). People have suggested that she write about overcoming or, at least, learning to deal with these problems. She’s opted not to because she feels doing so would be misunderstood as a manufactured “first world problem,” but also because, I think, it is something that she continues to feel a little insecure about.</p>
<p>Honestly, I do not know. I’ve had people ask me and I’ve so said. I’ve hear opinions both way. Some keep it quiet, some make it centerpiece, some allude to it. Whether some schools, some admissions officers will not want to deal with disabilities and that they do have to be accommodated by law, is a suspicion that I have no idea if founded or not. I think OP with discussions with parents of disabled kids that they might have a better feel for this than most of us. It would also depend upon the schools the students are applying to.</p>
<p>What I would probably do, is apply to a bunch of schools and vary the essays and the approaches and see how it goes. </p>
<p>I disclosed my physical disability in my college applications, and I had quite good outcomes, for whatever that ancedotal evidence is worth. With that said, I don’t think colleges care about disability as a diversity factor at all.</p>