<p>My youngest son is Russian and will be the first person in his biologic family to attend college. Also, he has a significant disability(polio) which he deals with everyday seamlessly. CUrrently he is completing his freshman year of high school an A/Honor student and wants to apply for merit/music scholarships at pretty competitive colleges(not IVY). Since he is 15 and has underdeveloped frontal lobes(haha), he may change his mind!</p>
<p>In todays world of competitive admissions, I know both his adoption and disability are "hooks". How do you indicate this on the common app? Especially, the "parent" section. I guess we put parents as unknown?</p>
<p>Any advice appreciated from those who have had similar issues.</p>
<p>No, since you are his adoptive parents, all the questions regarding parents are about you. If he wants to bring up adoption and/or disability, it would have to be in an essay, or supplemental question. </p>
<p>Our youngest daughter is adopted from China, and mentioned it in one of the common application essays.</p>
<p>The disability would be quite important to mention when he does accept a spot, as they have many services available at most schools (religious-affiliated schools might be the exception due to not having to comply with the ADA). </p>
<p>Note that if you and his father attended college, and he is your adopted son, you would be hard-pressed to say he is the first person in his family to attend college. You are his family.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you are worrying about this now though, if he is a freshman. Certainly though, when he writes his essays, he could feel free to mention that he is adopted and disabled. And it would be wise to look into which colleges provide extra aid to those who are physically disabled.</p>
<p>For example, I got a NIH graduate fellowship that is reserved for disabled people after researching funding opportunities. That particular program is very underused because there aren’t enough people “disabled enough” but still able to attend college full-time. There is funding from the undergraduate up until the career level - another example is that early career disabled researchers can be tacked on “for free” to the head of the group because they are disabled, and accommodations will be funded as well.</p>