anyone headed to UCONN using Beyond Access Program or just ASD?

Parents Forum Learning Differences and Challenges - LD, ADHD
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I would have him apply to some close-ish to home and some farther away (UCONN is the best of course lol). Only you know your son, but my son in the summer before his Senior year didn’t think he would be able to go to even a 4 year close to home, only going to community college. Remind him that he can do it, and if he doesn’t, he will be just like the neurotypical kids who had a tough time and came home to try again. Plus, there is a class of people called transfer students who change schools for any number of reasons.

I forgot to mention that my son went to a pre-college program in his junior to senior summer in Denver (College Living experience, which does have a few locations for school year support, Costa Mesa being one). I believe it was 2-3 weeks dorming in a community college and learning basic self-care skills (laundry, using public transportation, getting themselves up, showered) and so he was a little more confident, but still… If you can’t leverage a program like that (there is also CIP near me, probably other vendors across the country), it might be helpful if you have grandparents or an aunt and uncle or someone he might listen to without thinking it’s nagging and have him stay with them and do all that stuff for himself. Maybe even just a pre-college summer program at a 4 year institution near you that doesn’t specifically cater to kids on the spectrum.

As we said to him, you can just decide in August that you aren’t ready and go to the local community college. You can’t just decide in September you want to go to a 4 year school, so apply and will reassess in the spring when the decisions come in. Best idea I ever had. There is a lot of natural growth in Senior year, and even before the decisions came in, he had decided he was going away. He applied to the UCs (Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and UCSD and got into all, but none had the supports he needed, and he liked them but really liked UCONN). UC Santa Barbara has an autism center that used to cater to kids up to I think Elementary School, but they are branching out to supporting the college age. Depending on his level of impairment, it might be helpful. We met with them and they didn’t give a welcoming vibe to my son’s quirkiness.

All in all, I think going away so far was the best thing we could have done for him. I took him to look at schools, but he flew by himself to orientation and back. And my husband took him to school (spent some time in Boston before they went), but he came back for Christmas/went back on his own and I thought about going to help him pack up, but he’s doing that on his own and then traveling to Boston for a few days and coming back from there. So clearly, he feels he can do it. And he’ll be cutting back to once a week with support, if the Director okays it.

Does that mean it’s all sunshine and rainbows? No. He told me yesterday that the campus police came to talk to him because he was acting weird/probably creepy at the Student Union. He still hasn’t mastered social interaction, so personal space/entering a conversation not always his strong suit. But, when they talked to him, it sounds like he (and probably his RA and friends) were able to explain the nature of his impairment without issue. So, I choose to see the glass as half full.

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@overbearingmom - thank you so much for sharing your experience. I am very impressed that your son is able to venture so far and have a successful experience. It’s very helpful and encouraging! My son has strong stats (although his grades are slipping a bit this semester with anxiety and some other health issues). We are also looking into the same UCs your son applied and right now UCSD is our top choice as it’s close to home and my son is very familiar with the campus. Yes I am concerned with the level of support from UCs so that’s definitely something to consider. My son applied for a few pre-college programs this summer. We have requested accommodations and the programs seem receptive. A bit nerve-wrecking but like you said, it’s a good way to “test-drive” the college experience.

In addition to UCs, we have a list of schools with good engineering programs that we heard may have good support for ASD kids. Did you check out any of them? I would really appreciate if you could share your insights on these programs: Stanford, USC, SDSU, Cal Poly SLO, U Washington, U Arizona (SALT), Rutgers, UConn, Drexel, Purdue, RIT, Cornell. Thanks again!

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Just a note for you @2015vintagemars during our campus visit to UCSD, they intimated that the campus is sort of dead on the weekends. At UCONN, you can stay on campus during breaks, and my son stayed on campus when most of the kids went home (New England). He was fine, maybe a little bored. Don’t know about your kid, but my kid doesn’t share that much.

I didn’t realize SLO or SDSU had support. I know U of Denver has a program as well. My son applied, but even with merit aid, it was sort of too expensive, and my son was lukewarm, so I didn’t reach out. Guessing that you’ve eliminated it because of no engineering.

The only ones on that list (though I did have my son look, he ruled them out) that I spoke to. As mentioned above, my entry point to RIT’s program was different from UCONN. We went to an open house for RIT and a we went to a group session, but I wasn’t impressed enough to go further unless it was one of the ones on my son’s short list. It seemed to me they didn’t want parent involvement and they had unrealistic expectations of the spectrum of impairment, or maybe they didn’t want to serve kids who had poor self care/advocate skills. UCONN has a program called Husky For A Day and it’s a shadow program where your kid is paired with someone and is showed around and at that time, I met directly with the director (my friend in CT knew someone whose kid went through the program, so I spoke to her too so she hooked me up with director, happy to make that introduction for you if your son is interested in UCONN (I’ve heard great things about engineering) - also think if you call the Disabilities Office, she’d be happy to meet with you without an introduction). During that meeting, I made MY decision, took my son a little longer, but I didn’t pressure. For me, the added benefit is my college roommate lives 20 minutes away, so a) I stay with her when visiting b) if there were an emergency, she would go and advocate for him.

The director was responsive to my questions before and after he arrived, said if there was any issues that our kids relayed to us or changes at home, and if there were any issues from their perspective, they’d call us. They are willing to do wellness checks if you get no response via cell. It wouldn’t hurt to have contact information of roommate and them to have yours. Can’t remember if my son told his roommate about his quirkiness. Most likely, in engineering, his roommate even if random will be a little quirky. My son had an anxiety/inappropriate outburst in October and his roommate texted me and made me aware, so that was good and we resolved it quickly.

Hope my experience gives you some questions to ask when you reach out to them directly.

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Had almost identical experience with both Uconn and RIT. Also compared services at many other schools, the engineering ones focused as well as Purdue, Syracuse and Union. UConn had the best support as far as I could tell and it’s a little over an hour away from our house. It’s also among the more expensive of the support programs but I’m expecting it to have a lot more meat to it than the other programs I looked at, especially compared to RIT. Have high hopes but trying to temper expectations.

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OK. Good luck with that. But you said your son is a junior, right? The essays aren’t due until October 2019. Has he already applied?

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@overbearingmom - UConn sounds like an amazing program! I am a bit scared to even think of sending my son so far away but rationally I know we should not restrict our options to only California schools. Did you happen to look at th SALT Program at U Arizona? It’s only 5-hr drive from SoCal so we thought could be an option

@uniquefirsttry - thanks for sharing. overbaringmom’s son is already in college; my son is a junior in HS looking to apply for college. We are planning our summer college tour and trying to develop a short list. What do you think of the program at Purdue?

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@2015vintagemars Sorry for delayed response. I didn’t even bother looking into Purdue for autism support. My son got into engineering there and my sense is that it’s fiercely competitive. My son’s a good student but a slow processor and I just couldn’t have him that far away from us in that heated of an environment. I know they attract superstar students. That said, I’ve heard they have extremely talented teachers who can lift kids up who are willing to work. But there was just too much Unnecessary risk that we were taking on by sending him there so I didn’t even call the disability office. Good luck with your college search.

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My advice is not to pick the school based on the office of disabilities because there is always a way to get help. If you had to, you could hire privately to help him stay on task, organize, etc. I think for self-care, that’s basically what DU said you should do as a supplement and they would help with that but really it’s a contract between you and the grad student. If he has a preference of schools, let him pick ones he likes, have him look at ones YOU like based on the services, but you don’t have to look until it’s narrowed and applied to. That said, I would insist he apply to a few of yours, just to give you options when decision time comes. Like I said, I had my son look at U of A, and Rutgers and some others, but he wasn’t interested in them and you want him to ultimately be happy and find the right fit. And had he not chosen UCONN, we would have had a discussion about what our expectations and calculus on the matter was.

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Thank you both!!

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Can I give an update/brag/rave? I just got my son’s end of year report. It confirms the Grad student’s recommendation to go down from 2 or 3 times a week to 1, and his assertion that he might not need it all 4 years. Also, I know that my son wants to get a job next year, though I am a little nervous about he might get one and navigate it from a social standpoint. I emailed the Director and they are happy to work with him on that.

Again, I can’t rave enough about UCONN. I know everyone’s mileage may vary with level of impairment/willingness to avail themselves of help/comfort level on letting go.

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Brag away. It’s music to my ears. My son is just this week finishing up high school and headed to Uconn and Beyond Access in the fall. Every interaction with them makes me feel so good about his choice but I also know there are no sure things as far as spectrum issues go. I will be holding my breath until we are where you are right now. They are asking him now how many hours he wants and I’m pushing him to do the three-hour plan. I’m thinking an hour and a half twice a week. They also helped him get a single, which is unbelievable to me. They have shown me things that I never imagined would be available to my son in college. Because he is a late diagnosis, he will have more support in college than he did in high school, which didn’t go great this year in terms of the IEP but at least we have it. Congrats to your son and to his mom for helping find a great fit for him.

PS did you do the early move-in, the Husky GPS thing, last August?

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@overbearingmom — am reposting this with your handle because I want to make sure it finds you.

Brag away. It’s music to my ears. My son is just this week finishing up high school and headed to Uconn and Beyond Access in the fall. Every interaction with them makes me feel so good about his choice but I also know there are no sure things as far as spectrum issues go. I will be holding my breath until we are where you are right now. They are asking him now how many hours he wants and I’m pushing him to do the three-hour plan. I’m thinking an hour and a half twice a week. They also helped him get a single, which is unbelievable to me. They have shown me things that I never imagined would be available to my son in college. Because he is a late diagnosis, he will have more support in college than he did in high school, which didn’t go great this year in terms of the IEP but at least we have it. Congrats to your son and to his mom for helping find a great fit for him.

PS did you do the early move-in, the Husky GPS thing, last August?

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UCONN is amazing. Make sure to join the UCONN parents group on FB. Amazingly supportive! I can’t tell you how many times they have made me feel so much better about having a kid across the country. I think the 3 is the right thing to start. Remember, that you have no idea how it will go and you can always go down, but finding a grad student with MORE availability than they anticipated will be better. Even if he doesn’t use the 3 (my son just did 2, I think), it is money well spent. We didn’t do the Husky GPS thing, but he was in Honors housing and they had the UNIV program, which is a course on understanding UCONN and University life in general.

I’ll send you my real name by message. Let’s connect on FB. I’ll talk you off a ledge. Let go of the reins a bit and I’ll help you do it. The director is wonderful, the program is wonderful, the school is wonderful, the parents of NT kids are wonderful. Trying to get my daughter to go there but it’s not a perfect fit.