<p>My son is a senior in hs and has a longstanding and well documented diagnosis of ADHD. As a parent I am concerned about his success in college living on his own, managing his school and daily life and advocating for himself when he runs into difficulties. Not sure how to approach colleges about this issue. Wondering if parents of children with ADHD or students themselves can tell me how they found out about supports , what colleges have been helpful, any tips to the process? Much appreciated</p>
<p>Good luck and let me know what you find out. I certainly would benefit from knowing.</p>
<p>You can and should set up a meeting with folks in the disability office for any school you are serious about to discuss accommodations and their attitude towards supporting students with disabilities. The easy stuff is things like extra time for tests, testing in a quiet setting, note taking, copies of teacher slide/handouts ahead of time–virtually all schools can provide that given documentation. However, all schools will require that the student make the effort to put these in effect–handing a letter to the prof the first day of class, requesting the extra time ahead of the exam, etc.</p>
<p>I have never felt that the disability office and admission office communicated at all, and had no compunction in asking folks from the admssions office to transfer me to disability. That said, it is a major decision whether to disclose disabilities on the common app.</p>
<p>They vary in their executive function supports and attitudes towards kids with disabilities. Some colleges provide EF support but many don’t. You can also look into using a coach thru the Edge Foundation.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>@sudsie Thanks! I will say, the first contact (good or bad) with the OSD may not be indicative of the experience. Before being admitted, you will hear the party line from the seasoned administrative lead. After enrollment, you will get the “boots on the ground” process. Getting to know the student, the reality (for us) has been better than the promise. :)</p>
<p>When DS started looking at colleges we took a look at the description of the disability services department on each school’s website. Some websites went into great detail while others barely mentioned that a department existed. That helped with narrowing down his list of potential schools. DS’s disability was disclosed on his applications since he did not take a foreign language in hs and the reason why was explained in the letter from his guidance counselor. </p>
<p>I have been very happy with the disabilities office at the University of Southern Maine, where my son goes. Although it’s a small school, the office bends over backwards to support him. When he calls the office, the receptionist always says, “Well, hello, MaineLonghorn’s son! What can I help you with today?” He takes tests in their office and is given double time. They provided a note taker for him one semester, but he decided he didn’t need one after that. The professors have been very understanding. His advisor even told him that she had struggled with mental illness as a teenager.</p>
<p>He didn’t fall ill until his freshman year in college, so we didn’t have any disclosure decisions to make during the application process.</p>
<p>One piece that MAY co-occur with organizational challenges is a challenge in prioritizing what is important. This is where a note-taker may be valuable. Even if your child can keep up and take his/her own notes in class, it may be worth exploring whether getting another person’s notes (with highlighting, asterixes, and underlining) may help to reinforce this prioritization. We are just learning ourselves, but this is something non-obvious that may be worth a try.</p>
<p>I found it interesting that Northeastern University–known for having a good disability dept.–recommended outside coaching for executive function issues. It makes sense to me, since most disability departments are providing support for academics, not daily life choices. </p>
<p><a href=“http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2014190327_nicole11m.html”>http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2014190327_nicole11m.html</a>
If the link doesn’t work, search northeastern university and edge coaching seattle.</p>
<p>I believe the University of Arizona SALT program does include coaching in their program, which requires additional fees.</p>
<p>I googled and found this list:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/09/21/20-incredible-colleges-for-special-needs-students/”>http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/09/21/20-incredible-colleges-for-special-needs-students/</a></p>
<p>My hs sophomore daughter has poor executive function. She really struggles in high school. We are getting lots of self paid outside help; counseling and tutoring. I doubt she will be admitted anywhere except community college but we still have a couple of years. We actually have a sleep away state junior college in VA. I’d love to see more discussion on options for ADHD students. I think she should go to school close enough to home that we can check on her during the first few months. </p>
<p>How do your music major kids fair in music school? I really struggle figuring out what programs will be a good fit. For instance ccm or university of cincinatti provide academic coaching to everyone. That sounds good to me. My son scores well on standardized tests, but not so well with time management and high demand classes mixed with high demands on his time for practicing. We figured out his senior year that less is more because lracticing is probably worth 2 classes alone. Do adhd kids just end up graduating later? That just seems so expensive </p>
<p>@Jcdp2015 and @OspreyCV22 , I have been meaning to start a thread about this for a long time. Maybe someday. But I can’t stress the importance of this enough: Send your high-performing, college-bound high school kids AWAY for academic summer programs. Long ones. Don’t wait until college to try to figure out whether they can function away from home. Send them away over the summer in HS. </p>
<p>For sleep-away academic programs at boarding schools and colleges, they will have to apply and get accepted. This is such a great opportunity to test out essay themes, LD disclosure statements, etc. Have them apply to several programs to make sure they have options.</p>
<p>Most programs have scholarships available, so make sure you meet those deadlines (they are usually a month or two earlier than non-scholarship app deadlines).</p>
<p>There is so much to learn for both students and parents from an LD student’s participation in a summer academic program, and very little to be lost (since any grades they are given aren’t reported to schools unless you request it and students generally don’t have other students from their local area attending a far-away program with them. So, if they don’t do well, nobody knows but you and your child). </p>
<p>When my kids participated, the classroom content was largely superfluous for me. What I wanted to know was Did they wake up in time for class? Did they get to the dining hall in time to eat breakfast? Did they do their homework? Did they complete their projects? Did they do their own laundry? Were they happy? Did they wear matching clothes (at least some of the time)? How many times did they lose their room keys (and what did the lost ones cost me)? Did they make friends? Did their professors seem to like them? How did they deal with their LDs in the classroom with teachers who didn’t know them? Did they advocate for themselves when they needed to?</p>
<p>And, most importantly: Did they have opportunities to be independent and make choices about how and where to spend their time?</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of those programs where the kids wear matching t-shirts and get ushered in groups from place to place. There is very little/nothing to be learned about an LD student’s ability to function in college from those sorts of programs. </p>
<p>In sixth grade, I started sending my kids away to high-level academic summer programs. I wanted them to be able to “fall” with a soft landing (i.e.: with lots of support, but lots of freedom and responsibility, too.) By 10th grade, I knew that my kids knew how to travel safely by themselves through airports with connections and using public transportation. They knew how to explain their LDs to new teachers, and function at a high level academically without me there to prod them along. They knew how to wake themselves up, and have friends knock on their doors as they were leaving in case they forgot to set an alarm. They knew how to keep up with all of their belongings (except for keys–still struggling with that one). Etc. Etc.</p>
<p>I believe that one of the greatest gifts we, as parents of high-performing LD students, can give to our kids is the opportunity to pursue an academic career commensurate with their academic abilities and NOT their disabilities. It takes an extraordinary commitment to help them reach a point where their Executive Function problems don’t inhibit their abilities to perform well in a high-level academic environment. The best growth opportunity I found for my LD kids was not helping them along every day at home, but sending them away for extended periods in the summer to “play college”. 
LD kids need to know that you, their parents, trust them to be independent and make good decisions when they are away from you. They need to know how to cope with stressful academic situations without you there to pull them through. They need to learn to handle life away from home without the added stress of feeling that their entire future depends on the grades they earn.</p>
<p>YMMV, but for us, summer academic programs were my children’s most valuable extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>Check the EDGE foundation for ADHD support (they may have a list of colleges who are more cooperative.) There’s also a scholarshiip for ADHD students (one from each state, a $2,000 scholarship plus a year of adhd coaching.</p>
<p>Here are a couple of ideas. I am not sure where you live or what your son is interested in studying, but her is a program that offers executive function support to students attending colleges in Vermont and Wisconsin
<a href=“http://mansfieldhall.org/”>http://mansfieldhall.org/</a>. Another program that provides executive function support on college campuses is <a href=“http://www.aheadd.org/”>aheadd.org;
Both of these programs can get costly. A less expensive option is to put an ad in craigslist, the campus paper, or care.com and see if you hire a psychology graduate student for $10 to $15 an to do all of the things that you do to support him. For the most part, colleges don’t provide support services for students in the dorms. I know some colleges are starting to support kids with executive function issues. Roosevelt U. and University of the Ozarks do through the disabilites office. You might want to consider subscriber to this website too: <a href=“http://collegesupports.com”>http://collegesupports.com</a>. It goes in depth about the kinds of supports colleges offer. </p>
<p>I agree with @happykidsmom. My son did a summer program as a trial run for college. My concern wasn’t so much about academics but social & organizational. How would he do with a roommate? Would he get himself up on time in the morning? Would he do his laundry? Would he remember to take his meds every day? My rationale was that if it didn’t work out we were only out the cost of the summer program instead of a whole semester’s tuition, room & board. </p>
<p>DS is now a freshman @ Temple. When he was looking at schools I made sure there was some mention of support services in a school’s literature and/or website. Sometimes it took quite a bit of digging which is usually not a good sign. Once he was accepted at a school we took a closer look at what type of support was offered. It varies widely depending on the school. </p>