@FlyAwayTime Sure. First, Beyond Access invited me to 1) come in to their offices and 2) come in to meet without my son. Conversely, WPI wouldn’t meet with just me. WPI was adamant that we take my son out of school so we could all meet together (no Saturday meetings) or that he disclose on Accepted Students Day at a table the disabilities center will have alongside other tables that day. When you get a late diagnosis like he/we did (ASD1 from new DSM 5 manual, essentially same characteristics that used to be termed Asperger’s. And no my son didn’t get to take his SAT with accommodations; our timing is that terrible! lol) it can be very hard to have your disability be your lead in. I thought it was weird of WPI to insist on that. He wants to arrive on campus leading with his achievements and not have other accepted students see him a having a disability. Also he’s missed so much school this year due to senior stuff and visiting specialists (we had thought about a gap year for our son at different “transition programs” but found it was not suitable for him and since tuition goes up every year we didn’t want to wait) that I preferred not to have him miss another day. WPI doesn’t have a fee based spectrum support program like RIT and UConn (and several other schools) but that is the experience I had in trying to meet with their disabilities center staff.
With RIT, I got the feeling they didn’t even want me to come in. “Just come by on accepted students day, there’s really nothing to see here in our office.” Also, when you call RIT program, no one ever picks up. I get the sense they are significantly less staffed than the Uconn program, which has answered every time I’ve called (only about 3 times) with an incredibly cheery staff person, who’s a grad student tyically studying psychology and education. When I did get someone from RIT program to call me back (several days later), she asked me “why would you want to come by here?”, I replied that the support program in place would have a big impact on where my son decides to go to college and the person literally said Really?! as if she thought that was an odd thing to say. And yes, @eandesmom, the very nice scholarship he got from RIT explodes like an adjustable rate mortgage where he’d/we’d suddenly be on the hook for 10s of 100s of $s if he wants to stay at RIT. My 17 year old is not where he need to be yet to take on a financial commitment like that. It’s a terrible burden for any kid, disabled or not.
I have also been looking at r/RIT a bit lately – reddit’s RIT subreddit – and those kids are so darned stressed about money, much more so than the Uconn postings. And RIT’s had a challenging recent history of mental health issues I won’t go into here.
In terms of questions to ask for a fee base spectrum support program – how many hours a week of coaching do you get for the fee you pay? How would it fit in his schedule?
How do they help the student disclose to professors
What is needed in terms of documentation, etc for accommodations. What accomos are available
How do the accomos work, have them paint a picture for you – where does student takes tests (in class or in a special more private location), get coaching, can come to study if need be, skype with their therapist if roommate won’t give them privacy, that kind of thing
Does the program guarantee that student’s diagnosis will remain private? ie just bc students gets accomos doesn’t mean professor and or peers need to know his diagnosis – I didn’t know that!
How do you get professor to agree and deliver on all the accomos? A good program will describe that to a tee rather than having it all be incumbent just on student to make sure prof follows thru. That’s a likely recipe for failure for a lot of ASD kids
What is the experience and skill set of the staff in dealing with Autism/ADAHD/NVLD/(your student’s issue here). Grad students – are they educated on the profile they’re dealing with? Who supervises and trains them?
Get a FERPA waiver. A good program will tell you how to handle all that and why it’s necessary in 90% of these situations.
How many staff are there? How many students does it support in a given semester? How does office mood feel to you? Stressed? Empty? How many students does each academic coach carry. Does student get matched with one coach or do they have to see different coaches depending on who’s in that day?
How many students do all 4 years in the program? If few do all 4 yrs (or 5 if engineer) does that mean program is that great that students didn’t need subsequent yrs after yr 1 or some other less positive reason?
I could go on but need to get back to work.
What is the experience of the staff in terms of ASD1, non verbal learning disabilities, ADHD, meds, etc? When I said about Beyond Acceess group “there was no hard sell but they said all the right things w/o me even having to ask.”, what I meant by that was 1) they didn’t try to sell me on anything, it was very low key, no pressure and 2) that they described my son to me completely. They already know who he is. He is a very certain type of kid whose academics well exceed his social skills, but in such a way that his entire academic career could be derailed if he doesn’t have certain supports. You need to communicate well in order to do well academically. They have experience and more importantly best practices around what works. We are definitely leaning toward Uconn bc of the Beyond Access program. RIT and WPI are schools that this time last year we dreamed of my son attending – they are incredible schools – but he probably needs a level of support they are just not delivering at the same impressive level that Uconn is. Hope this answers your q!