<p>My daughter is very interested in Carleton, and I wondered if any students or parents of students there have had experience dealing with the learning differences dept as well as professors there. I know the workload is very challenging, (as it is at her high school) but I was hoping that despite the challenging workload, LD kids are well supported.</p>
<p>What are you looking for specifically… For example extra time on tests, tutoring, access to professors, etc. In the math science course I took, usually none of these things were an issue. Profs are available, tutoring is available, and I usually had plenty of time to complete exams. Some of the exams were take home with no time limit in my math courses. Often Carleton’s prof’s style was to focus on the completeness of your knowledge on a test rather than how much you can put down in a limited amount of time. There are pros and cons to this…It may not always be the best preparation for grad school.</p>
<p>I think that Carleton strives to focus on learning rather than grades as much as possible and it isn’t a cutthroat school by anybody’s experience. While not on the surface, it is a very competitive school academically though… </p>
<p>Certain pre-med classes are graded harshly, and in these I think there’ll be a struggle between the focus on learning and the focus on competition. Some may disagree. Carleton may not bend over backwards for anybody in these classes…is what I’m saying. This won’t be any different at any similarly ranked school though.</p>
<p>I’m not a student there, but I am a high school senior looking at Carleton. I have an IEP because I have some learning differences, and I emailed my interviewer about it. </p>
<p>So I’m not sure if this is helpful, but here is a reply I received:
Learning disability services are SUPER accessible. There’s an office students can work through to make sure they’re given time accommodations on tests and other kinds of academic help. Our academic support at Carleton is also exceptionally good, from the formal centers we have to the really collaborative environment on campus.</p>
<p>Basically all professors will start the term by noting somewhere on the syllabus that if someone has a learning disability, he/she should talk with the professor to make proper arrangements.</p>
<p>On a similar note, I had one professor who had us fill out a sheet of paper basically letting her know about who we are (classes we’ve taken similar to this one, why we decided to take this class, our major, etc). One of the questions was if there was something going on in our lives that might affect our learning or make us more sensitive with some topics than with others which was pretty awesome.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…Just don’t count on this in a pre-med course like an intro to biology or physics, Calc II or Orgo II.</p>
<p>One place where I think Carleton is weak, is the fact that the courses are not evaluated every term by the college itself. In my Masters and PhD program, every course I ever took was evaluated by the University using a formal evaluation process. These evaluations were used to decide tenure, promotions and raises. </p>
<p>Maybe Carleton stated doing this and I don’t know about, so somebody can correct me if I am wrong…</p>
<p>I think this is an effective way to make sure everybody in the class has a voice about how the material should be taught and whether the professor is working with all learning styles…whether the students are LD or not. I also think it can be done very effectively if the evaluations are online, rather than given at the end of class. There has been some debate at Carleton about it. Some profs are against it saying students just give a prof high scores if the student is getting a good grade. It is not perfect solution, but it can be done effectively.</p>
<p>Jack63 - I believe they are working on that. Every class has “reviews” usually given out on the last day, so it’s a start, but I’m not sure which ones are only for the professor and which actually go to the administration. In general, I think that almost every class/professor is “observed” multiple times per term (I’ve had numerous profs sitting in during classes during my four years, and usually the express purpose was to evaluate the class/professor). That said, they need to go further and do a more thorough review.</p>
<p>OP - my understanding is that Carleton is very supportive of students with learning differences, and you can likely contact the SHAC with more questions (they’re quite friendly and open). The number can be found on the Carleton website.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Rp103…Good! This is an improvement from when I was there. I do remember having some informal reviews on the last day of class and very occasionally having classes observed. Neither of these happened regularly though when I was there. </p>
<p>On the not so good side, I think informal reviews aren’t going to be nearly as effective as a formal review process that affects the professor’s careers. At umich where I’m doing a PhD, they have formal reviews online in every class, so you are not rushed during the last part of the last day of class filling out a review. Also, when the reviews are online, they are truly anonymous and the profs only see the reviews after giving out grades. It’s not hard for a professor to make a pretty good guess at handwriting, so some students would be uncomfortable giving out harsh criticism if it could affect a grade. Additionally, if the reviews are online, you can go back and change something after thinking about it.</p>
<p>Carleton does have students fill out evaluations of profs going up for tenure. I think I did 2 or 3 of these when I graduated. It’s good Carleton involves students in the tenure process and these evaluations do matter, but it does not quite give the voice to students that regular class reviews would give. Also, it is only for profs going up for tenure. I guess there has been controversy with these too. A few years before my time at Carleton, I heard a couple profs were denied tenure at Carleton even though they had departmental support because students gave very poor reviews on the tenure evaluations (One prof was Physics and the other prof was either political science or economics). I guess it was a scandal at the time (might have been ‘96/’97), and President Lewis almost resigned in protest of the two professors being denied tenure….at least that was the rumor floating around. I had heard some seniors talking about this when I was a freshman. The point is that regular class evaluations would have forced the issue. With evaluations either these two profs would have improved or would have been fired long before they went up for tenure.</p>