<p>Please share your information about your search/selection/experience related to your ADHD college student.</p>
<p>I'm starting the process as my son will be a junior next year. </p>
<p>TIA</p>
<p>I'm not looking for information about ADHD. Please save any (diet-no tv-no video game-it's just a myth etc.) information not related to the thread question for another post that is looking for that sort of advice.</p>
<p>Okay. Depends on the student. I know a kid who got into UChicago and UNC-Honors Program with ADHD. </p>
<p>Assuming your kid is struggling in school or has ups and downs, then the best antidote is STRUCTURE and DISCIPLINE and CONSISTENCY.</p>
<p>Our D2 is severe ADHD. We met that need with a lot of parent teacher conferences, a lot of emotional support but also a lot of consistent demands for meeting deadlines and getting work done and then ROTC.</p>
<p>Selecting colleges required picking schools that were small and nurturing, not too much stress and NO PARTYING GOING ON. We found a small southern virginia school to do just that plus a good counselor on campus and a structured program and a very structured extracurricular activity on campus. We outright rejected and eliminated large state institutions. Sending a kid with ADHD to a large bureaucratic school that is high stress, high distractions, party city, and otherwise an ocean to drown in is tantamount to child abuse in my opinion. Its a recipe for failure. BUT…there are exceptions in the ADHD paradigm. Your kid may be a super performer, brilliant, high SAT’s and thrives in challenging environments…who just needs a little channeling of energy. Not all ADHD kids are the same. </p>
<p>We will see if our plan works out, but it really feels good at this point and our kid is ecstatic about going there. We have already made contact with the counselor on campus. Its a DRY campus. (Kids with ADHD have a higher rate of alcohol/drug abuse as they seek to self medicate the stress.) </p>
<p>We are hopeful of a good outcome. High school was not easy, but we got through it and remarkably unscathed. Not top 10% mind you, but reasonably successful. It was a lot of hard work.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are many schools with support programs for students with ADHD.</p>
<p>Look into the University of Arizona SALT program</p>
<p>[SALT</a> Center](<a href=“http://www.salt.arizona.edu/about.php]SALT”>http://www.salt.arizona.edu/about.php)</p>
<p>I have ADD/ADHD and I didn’t really factor it into my college search. I applied for engineering at the schools that specialized in it like Cornell, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Michigan, etc., but for math at the others. I take medicine and everything for ADD/ADHD so it’s honestly not really a huge obstacle in my life; I find it helps me think really quickly, although I can also be spacey at times. But anyway here were my results:</p>
<p>Accepted: Duke (attending), Cornell, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, UVA, Michigan, Georgia Tech
Waitlisted: Princeton, Dartmouth
Rejected: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn</p>
<p>^^^ Congratulations, you are blessed. But you are not the norm. The ordinary ADHD/ADD kid has many obstacles and often performs poorly in school and standardized testing. The vast majority of high school dropouts have a learning disability and many of those are ADHD and their parents are unaware, the schools fail in meeting their needs, and the kids give up and roll over. Its the statistical norm. </p>
<p>Like I said, no one ADHD kid is the same. But most struggle mightily in school, even though they are often highly creative and have outstanding personalities and otherwise function at very high levels. </p>
<p>Our D2 had many issues in school and it was a sometimes wild roller coaster ride,but she hung in there and we fought with the school system for better teacher awareness and cooperation, while teaching our kid the essentials of being responsible/accountable.</p>
<p>Would you mind to tell me which southern Virginia college you are refering to ?</p>
<p>Bookmarked. </p>
<p>Trying to encourage him to look at small schools, which is what worked since pre-school, but that was because they got a chance to know him, to like him, and to figure out he was smart, in spite of his outrageous shenanigans. Not sure how that will translate to college.</p>
<p>Since high school, the right peer group has been most important, and for him I that’s been a soccer team.</p>
<p>I’m going through this process now with my daughter. My suggestion is to look at small schools that are not afraid of kids with ADHD. The other thing I would strongly recommend is to meet with the admissions counslers and go on visits before submitting your application. Be up front with the admissions counselers as so depends on them. In the 2 instances where my daughter met with the counseler, she received some merit funds. In my mind, more than her grades supported. Good Luck.</p>
<p>I’d certainly like to know which small southern school works well with ADHD children. My son is very gifted, but I am concerned that he doesn’t have the organizational strategies that will allow him to perform well in the rigor of univeristy. He has the SMARTS…but it’s been quite a journey just to get him through high school! I’d like to keep him in Virginia (out of state tuition is just too high). I would welcome some suggestions. He is intellectual and charming, but disorganized and not good at long-term projects.</p>