<p>DS will be a HS senior this fall and is trying to decide if he should add any reaches to his college list. He is thinking about adding Rice, Brown and Northwestern (maybe Wash U). He will disclose his Aspergers on his application it helps to explain course selection freshman year and in his mind it would be dishonest not to disclose. </p>
<p>Two questions First, does anyone have experience with a child on the spectrum who has been successful at a reach school. I have heard many stories of kids running into trouble, but I am wondering if attending a reach school is asking for trouble.</p>
<p>Second, if he discloses his Aspergers will he almost guarantee a rejection. Is neuro-diversity not the kind of diversity reach schools are interested in. I realize that these schools are basically lottery schools for any student.</p>
<p>Brown is known for embraces kids with neuro-diversity. A dear friend has a son with severe Tourettes and he was accepted to Brown.</p>
<p>My S has ADD and was encouraged to think of Brown for this reason. He attended Williams and struggled a bit, but basically did fine. He would have done even better at Brown because of Pass/No Pass option, but it wasn’t his choice.</p>
<p>I think you can “reach”. I know the young man with Tourette’s did disclose. I can’t remember is DS’s ADD was part of his application or not.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about the other schools to comment.</p>
<p>“if he discloses his Asperger’s will he almost guarantee a rejection.”</p>
<p>No. But neither will it compensate for any weaknesses in his application (for example, if he does not do well in an interview).</p>
<p>I don’t think attending a reach school is asking for trouble…but I would think hard about a sink-or-swim school that might allow a student to fall through the cracks. Rice, with its small residential colleges, strikes me as a less risky choice for a kid who might have trouble navigating on his own, despite its academic demands.</p>
<p>We just visited yesterday with a friend of Ds who had been her roommate senior yr at Reed college, who is an Aspie.
Additionally, both D & her roommate had their neurodifferences disclosed on their application .
D just recieved her masters degree after earning her undergrad in biology, and her friend is finishing up his PHd in biochemistry.</p>
<p>Many people with AS can do quite well. My son graduated last year with first class honours from University College London and is completing his MPhil at Cambridge, where he has been accepted to continue on for the PhD. We had concerns about sending him to the UK on his own but he met the challenges with only a few mishaps and mistakes. It helped that in the English system students concentrate on a single field of study, history in his case. It also helps that people in Britain see many of the AS symptoms as eccentricity rather than pathology. Of course there is an AS spectrum and some people have greater difficulties.</p>
<p>I agree that in the UK neurodifferences seem to be much more out in the open and being on a spectrum is acknowledged.
I’ve thought I have elements of dyspraxia for example, but in USA only the most severe forms seem to be recognized, whereas in UK, there are more resources for people who just need some support.</p>
<p>I don’t think attending a reach school is unattainable, the key piece is what kind of support is available and is it in danger of being discontinued suddenly.
I also lean to the side of disclosure, it makes it much easier to identify resources- which I hope you research much more than I did with my youngest who is struggling. For students who have problems advocating for themselves, even a small barrier can be overwhelming.</p>
<p>Mythmom – I do think he could find a home and fit at Brown. I think Dad is somewhat disappointed that DS has no interest in Harvard (Dad’s school), but it’s all about fit.</p>
<p>Hanna – I agree it won’t compensate for a bad interview and can see the interview go either way – it will either be fantastic or a total fail, in general he has always been very good conversing with adults. However, his bluntness can also rub people the wrong way. A graduation requirement for HS was an interview which went well.</p>
<p>I also think the residential colleges at Rice would be a good fit for him, that is the reason we first looked at the school. Since he may be interested in engineering, I have tried very hard to find programs that do not have a strong weed out philosophy.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4 & Irishdoctor – Thanks for success stories, I have always been an over worrier and Dad and son have always been the optimists. Each time my son has been pushed, he has risen to the challenge and I don’t want my fears to keep him from future challenges.</p>
<p>A couple of pieces of advice, reach or not:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Look at the Gen Ed classes that your son will have to take freshman year. Lots of Aspies do very well in their areas of interest but not so well otherwise. A school that insists that its graduates be very well rounded is not the school for a student whose brain is not wired that way.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure the school has a tutoring or academic support center that a student can access before he is on academic probation. I’ve often thought that my son would have done better at the one mid-tier state U to which he applied, because they were set up to help “at risk” students. He was brighter and had a much better HS education than the “at risk” population, but he still needed help that was not available at his LAC.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Missypie - Thanks for the advice. We like Rochester and Brown because of the lack or limited requirements. DS is a math/science kid, but also really likes Social Studies and Latin, but dreads English even though he loves to read.</p>
<p>And I like Alabama and BU for the supports and NM money. I also like our local CC because they have an honors program and Asperger’s Support, it will be interesting to see where he ends up.</p>
<p>Of all the programs I’ve read/heard about, Alabama’s seems like the best. That is a huge regret. Son’s stats were high enough that Alabama would have given him in-state tuition. But he didn’t want to go that far away. One shaky college semester, and the good HS stats are meaningless.</p>
<p>I don’t really have any advice, but I want you to know that I had an absolutely delightful young man with Asberger’s in one of my classes this semester. I was grateful that he told me about it early in the semester because his reactions sometimes surprised his classmates and it was helpful to me to know a little bit about him. My student was a much better student than my typical CC transitional student, but he also struggled a bit with English. Best wishes to your son.</p>
<p>Some students with Asperger’s have primarily social issues. Others have primarily Executive Function issues. (Of course, some have both.) Many of the students without Executive Function disorder do great academically…those are the “success stories.” Many of the kids with Executive Function Disorder crash and burn. If your son is in that category, he either needs to be in a special program (like at Alabama) or needs an Executive Function Coach from day 1.</p>
<p>If you haven’t already read this article, read it about a dozen times:</p>
<p>I think Brown and Rochester are both possible, if the student has the supports they need. Have you looked at CMU? They have great supports for aspie kids.</p>
<p>Anniez We visitted CMU and he thought he would love it, but did not feel at all comfortable. However, he loved Pitt and we spent a lot of time speaking with the support staff in the engineering department.</p>
<p>Thank you missypie for attaching that link. This paragraph describes my son’s experience at one of those schools you’ve listed above. It was a reach, he was 10 hours away from home and friends, at a school that was dreary and cold. Even though he went to their disability office everyday to study, they never “understood” the extent of his needs. Oh sure, he COULD have spoken up more but he was a boat without a rudder in the middle of an ocean with a violent storm heading right his way. </p>
<p>After all those years of a special yellow bus, the teasing, the bullying, the special tutors, therapists, classes, schools… After years of sensory integration, speech, vision therapy, psychologists, special diets, various drugs, social “training”, numerous evaluations, etc., we thought he was ready … going off to college would be a wonderful new beginning.
Can you imagine how unhealthy it is to exist in a community of peers and yet never talk to anyone for days and days? In the end, he transferred to a small LAC 20 minutes from home. Why didn’t we do that from the beginning?</p>
<p>Missypie - Thank you for the article. I think you are right, I will have to re-read it several times to absorb everything it says. I am really struggling to find a balance between being protective and letting him reach for his dreams. The article mentions PTSD and I think this is a real issue not just for the children, but the parents as well.</p>
<p>I am hoping this upcoming year will provide some clarity or at least a sense of peace that we (as a family) made the best choice with the information available. I realize there are so many pitfalls and dangers and that his path will most likely be neither direct or easy, but I need to foster his ability to dream and somehow renew mine to hope.</p>
<p>Limabean - I realize your question is rhetorical, but I think the answer is you did the best you could - both very simple and extremely complicated. The faith I have in the local CC makes me comfortable that he will have a place to land if things don’t work out, to me it is a sort of net for his dreams and my fears.</p>
<p>How is your son doing at the local LAC - has he been able to establish any relationships with his peers?</p>
<p>Just please please try to keep any Magical Thinking in check (yours, as well as his.) If you spend all of senior year and the summer after with a big knot in your stomach and fear that things may go badly, pay attention to it. You know your child better than any experts. All of the writings that say to ship him off and let him sink or swim are not directed to you.</p>
<p>As for Aspergers college success stories: Among the CC family, I can’t think of anyone whose kid has gone away to a 4 year school, not in a special program, and has stayed there and graduated. There are kids who went to cc first, then went away, who did fine. There are kids who went away first, then came home and commuted who did fine. There are lots of variations of “success” but I just can’t think of anyone who had a straight path. The ones who do, again, do not have executive function disorder, and have pretty good social skills.</p>
<p>There may be success stories that don’t get posted because they are “unremarkable” (e.g. just like everyone else.)</p>
<p>I don’t know if you’ve read the myriad Asperger’s threads over the years…click on my screen name and look at Asperger’s threads I’ve post on (or CardinalFang) over the past 3 years…I’m not saying your son can’t do it. I just want your eyes to be wide open.</p>
<p>missypie – I know several success stories (at least through college graduation; getting a job was another matter), but each had the same thing in common – studying locally. Each person either started at a local community college, then transferred to a local university OR went straight through at a local university. In each case, the student was never more than one hour from home. I’m glad that you are injecting a much-needed word of caution into this discussion. Starting college is a huge transition in itself. Doing it far from home and family is that much more daunting.</p>
<p>I think that can be very important. Mine was three hours away but that wasn’t close enough. We needed to have seen him and his room often. Had we done that, we absolutely would have known he was off his meds. Would have known that his dorm room, that a tornado might have improved, was a reflection of his state of mind.</p>
<p>Mom24boys, My son did graduate, but it took three colleges (one faraway big Uni, a reach), a local cc (that had very little community spirit and kids who didn’t have the same interest in studies as he did), and the small LAC. I seriously didn’t “think” he had such major issues when he went away, but after that year and ever since, his issues are so much worse. He now also deals with PTSD. Starting at the reach, for him, when he simply was not ready is the one mistake I will always, always regret. (Sigh. He trusted us to help him select the schools!) Our collective lives have changed because of that experience. </p>
<p>I’m glad you have a “back-up” plan, as we did. We just didn’t know we needed to execute it. Being too far away was one factor I should have anticipated.</p>