I’m currently a freshman, who was diagnosed with a learning disorder. Prior to getting medication my year was awful,(72avg), now I’m getting perfect grades on tests and projects. Its the beginning of the 3rd term out of 4. It looks like the highest plausible GPA I can get is 3.0 - 3.3 for my freshman year. You guys think I’m doomed, or is there anyway colleges in the future will forgive this?
You can use your essay to address this issue. Also, there is another section of most applications that allow you to explain any extenuating circumstances that may have occurred while you were in high school.
Hang in there. Keep your grades up. Colleges like to see an upward trend in your grades!
Best wishes to a bright future!
Of course you’re not doomed. Just keep working and start practicing sooner rather than later for SAT/ACT in case your LD makes those difficult for you. But even if you went through entire HS career as a solid B student, you would still have a lot of great options.
You are not doomed. Are you getting any accomodations, like extra time in tests. If so, one thing you should do late in sophomore or first thing junior year is start working with your GC to apply for accommodation with the College Board, and also ACT if you intend to take it.
In addition to the sound, foregoing advice, your GC’s recommendation should HIGHLIGHT this great improvement – and its causes. If you keep doing very well – congratulations to you – universities will essentially discount your early results, because: (1) your latter grades will PROVE they are unrepresentative and (2) your application, essays, and GC’s recommendation will explain precisely why. Just keep preforming at a high level and you’ll be fine,
I haven’t been receiving any accommodations yet. I was reading the other posts regarding students with ADHD, and it seemed like their grades before being diagnosed weren’t discounted.
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If you have a 3.0 freshman year and show an upward trend, have good standardized tests, recommendations and ECs there are many fine schools you could be in the running to attend. Too early to worry about it now.
My solid B student daughter was FINALLY diagnosed with two learning disorders as a senior in high school. The schools wouldn’t test her because she was getting B’s but we knew she was struggling. And then she took an elective course taught by a reading specialist and was sent for testing. She has a reading disability and a processing disorder. She graduated from one of our state colleges and now teaches math. She can’t spell to save her life, but give her a calculus problem and she’s thrilled. She is now on her state curriculum board and highly respected.
How “doomed” you are is based on what your disability is and how well it can be accommodated. It may mean that some career tracts would be better than others. For example, my daughter would have liked to have been an early education or literature teacher, but knew that she’d never be able to spell better than a third grader and correcting dozens of essays from high school students would have been too frustrating for her. Harvard might be out, but there are many schools that will accept you and offer good educations and career preparation.
You are fortunate to have received your diagnosis at this time, with plenty of time to understand it, learn to manage it and improve both your grades and your chances for success in college. Its all good.
Do you have ADHD or a learning disability? You keep flipping back and forth between the two. They are completely different. Do you have an IEP in place? If not why not? Some colleges may want to see it. There is some controversy on whether or not to disclose LD/ADHD in the application. In some cases it may not help. Check the learning disability forum for some more advice.
There are a fairly long list of requirements needed to get accommodations for the SAT (comprehensive neuropsych testing within the past couple of years, etc). Get on it now.
The only thing that’s new is the diagnosis. You’ve had the disorder forever, but now it has a name and an approach.
This is GOOD news. It means your self esteem can recover. It means concrete approaches to help deal with it.
ADD, I thought they were the same.
Having ADD does not mean you have a learning disability. These are completely separate diagnoses. Most people with ADD also have a concurrent learning disability. This is usually ferretted out with comprehensive neuropsychological testing. This testing typically takes at least 10-12 sessions spread out over a month period.
Did you undergo such testing? If so look in the summary section at the end. If you did not have a neuropsych test then your diagnosis would be somewhat suspect. If you anticipate needing extra time on the SAT/ACT a neuropsych test would be mandatory. A doctor’s note is no longer sufficient.
It depends on your definition of “doomed.” If by “doomed” you mean you probably won’t get into Harvard, then you probably would have been doomed even if you got a 4.0 in your freshman year. If by doomed you mean having no other option than a community college, then of course not. If you keep getting “perfect grades,” do well on your SAT/ACT, and have good extracurriculars, then you will have many good choices. Your freshman year is less important than your sophomore and junior years, and if you maintain high grades, then you’ll be fine. You have the benefit of having a clear before and after in your grades. You did poorly, started medication, and then started getting high grades. You can include that information as part of your application package. Looking for schools that evaluate applicants holistically may help you as well.
The UC system & I assume most other colleges, admit kids on their grades, scores, recommendations, essays, etc. It doesn’t matter to you have learning differences/disabilities…it’s how well you’ve done in HS that matters. The UC Merced campus & I assume other UC’s are very helpful in reaching out to students that have documented differences & need accommodations. They mentor & give preferred access to registration for their classes. You are who you are…don’t hide it! Advocate for yourself. You sound like a great person.
. Few do it this way, as it adds potential for variance across days and potential scoring challenges. Most administer testing in several hours over one or 2 days.
Re “Accommodations:”
Obviously, we all emphasize with those who have ADD and/or learning disabilities (there, but for the Grace of God …). However, I want to offer an observation re “accommodations” in the non-academic, adult working world. My wife’s law partner’s daughter was diagnosed with ADD and learning disabilities decades ago; as a result, she received numerous testing/academic accommodations (primary school through university levels) and she eventually graduated from William and Mary (both undergraduate and Law schools), where she did a perfectly good job (although, extra time was required).
However, she has really struggled – and continues to – in the private legal sector, in large part due to firms’ understandable inabilities to accommodate (these are HER statements, not mine). To illustrate, when a client absolutely requires a document or needs research-based advice in an hour or two, the firm must provide these services or risk losing business. When an attorney indicates she cannot meet such schedules, her value to the firm is seriously jeopardized. Things like this have resulted in her both being “eased out” of firms and in her not advancing with her peers.
The ADA apparently is complicated – and I will not pretend that I even remotely appreciate all of its tenets and nuances, plus I’m not a lawyer – but it apparently does not always mean individual’s problems must be accommodated. Crucially, the young lady now wishes she had not received frequent academic/testing accommodations, because she now believes they disadvantaged her for pragmatic legal practice.
I know far too little to take a position on this matter; however, I thought it might be worthwhile to provide her experiences.
TopTier Thats exactly why I’m unsure about getting extra time on tests, because in real life not everything is exactly balanced and fair. Thanks for your advice.
You’re most welcome and I wish you the best of luck @oldspice295 .