LD and Elite Colleges

<p>On UC Berkeley - my son's in the DSP at Berkeley and it's extraordinary. He went to a special ed private day school for junior and senior high and I have to say the services offered at Berkeley are superior. They care. I know, hard to believe, but they really do. I seriously think he gets more accommodations that he did at the special school. He has ADD and LD (processing). Yes, he's really bright and did well his first semester, with a great support system. I've heard from UC Irvine (which also has an amazing disabilities program) that Berkeley is the flagship in disabilities services in California.</p>

<p>Anonymom, we'd be happy to share our experiences with various things. RFB&D, audible, Dragon, Kurzweil, etc.</p>

<p>Shawbridge -- I would love to know more about your experiences with audible, Dragon, Kurzweil, etc. Would you consider starting a new thread on this technology? It would be incredibly helpful. We clearly need to move beyond RFB & D, but don't know exactly what would be best to use, or even what factors to take into account in evaluating different possibilities.</p>

<p>To answer other concerns that have come up in this thread...</p>

<p>1) I don't think my school (University of Chicago) has a particular organization specifically for LD's, like Berkeley's, but it's not uncommon to see on a syllabus something like: "Please contact me if you have a disability and may need special accomodations." Giving that the advising office here is great and that you can be assured that you or your child is not the first and will not be the last LD kid to attend the U of C, I think there's a pretty decent network going and an understanding that some people process information differently than others.</p>

<p>2) In some ways, LD kids are at an advantage in a college environment, even an academically challenging one. My hearing and processing skills are on the weak side (I have to turn everything I hear into text before I can understand it and I have to turn everything I read into sound, so I, like mythmom's son, have a tough time skimming), but I've overcorrected for this weakness by paying superattention in class, while many of my peers may be daydreaming. With readings, I tend to read the first and last sentences in a paragraph, as well as the first and last paragraphs of a section or an article, and I find I can generally map out the argument enough in my head to know what is and is not important. Maybe other people have other tricks.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think the kids who really are at a disadvantage when it comes time for college are students who are not used to working hard for the grades they get. For an LD kid who has worked hard all along and continues to work hard, I don't think it's as big of a jump.</p>

<p>
[quote]
3togo, your question is the one we are wrestling with. But, since these kids' brains are all wired in unique ways, the question is what things take a long time. For my son, he has found the pace of the Honors/AP classes in our high school to be too slow. He says, "Dad, I got the concept on Monday and we're still doing it on Friday."

[/quote]
great point ... I was really thinking of 3 things ... </p>

<p>Reading - for example, the foreign students at my B-school who read English clowly were at a HUGE disadvantage since so much of the "homework" was massive amounts of reading and being slow on the reading was killer. There is no easy accommadation for this unless the student picks up the concepts skipping a lot of reading.</p>

<p>Problem sets - for example, as an engineering undergrad my homework was doiminated by time consuming problem sets ... and if someone took twice as long to do them it would be a killer. (And I do think there is a difference between schools ... someone who does problem sets veery slowly would get killed at MIT). There is no easy accommadation for this one either unless the student gets the concepts doing less than all the homework.</p>

<p>Tests - the one that does have an easy accommadation assuming the schools allow for more time.</p>

<p>Great topic ... definately making me think about this in a much more kid specific manner!</p>

<p>AnonyMom -- You asked where I got info about state U's. I read this in "The Public Ivies," on page 33. Authors make the point that the size of the demand (more students with LDs) makes for a better supply of services. But this book is does not give much more than a case study of a couple of LD kids who chose State U's. There are some reference books on colleges for LDs. I've looked at these, but what schools say they offer and what they really do for LDs can differ, and I'd like to dig deeper than the marketing hype. Gifted/LD is a narrow niche. Maybe some elites understand and are sincerely willing to support such students. Our public school
district is clueless about gifted, let alone gifted/LD (unless parents are also special ed lawyers; then they play along). </p>

<p>Anyway, if anyone has any first-hand experience with HPYS, MIT, Harvey Mudd, JHU, Duke, UPenn, Rice, UNC CH, Barrett Honors, Rutgers Honors, or Boston U, please post if you haven't already! I am especially interested in quality of teaching and English proficiency of instructors in the sciences and engineering, which could make or break the college experience for my highly auditory learner of a D. The biggest research U's get some low ratings for teaching...which concerns me for a kid like her.</p>

<p>Nester, I will start a thread at some point. It's a hectic period at the moment, but I will come back to you on this because we can all learn from each other.</p>

<p>MomPhD, one of my friend's daughters was an applied math/econ major at Harvard (she graduated 1.5 years ago and is working for a hedge fund). She says there were a lot of dyslexic kids at Harvard. Quality of teaching is mixed there due to a) language in certain fields; and b) motivation of professors (who need to publish to get their next job when they don't get tenure at Harvard). She didn't know much about the formal support but believed that once you were admitted, Harvard really wanted to make sure you graduated. What is Barrett Honors?</p>

<p>D is strugling at top sch w/ great LD program. Not only is the fact that she is a slow reader a HUGE problem, but her interest in the LD accommodations was limited to getting out of a double room and into a single. </p>

<p>I'm hoping thing will imporve this semester. I think that until she rec'd her falll semester grades, she was in denial about how poorly she was doing (B-/C+ average). Her biggest problem: poor time mgt (and poor impulse control - - never says "no" to an invitation to go out and do something fun).</p>

<p>But (1) I'm not sure she'd be doing any better at a less compet sch and (2) if she decides to participate in the LD prgm, the campus services are great.</p>

<p>Shawbridge, Barrett is a residential honors college within Arizona State U. It offers large scholarships to NM semifinalists and finalists.</p>

<p>I personally was in LD all during my school experience which was about 10 years ago and before that. Elementary, high school I was in LD. Then i attended a private school the 11th grade because the school system decided that i didn't need to be in LD anymore and i ended up doing awful my 11th grade year so ended up going to a private school that would work at my pace. When i tried college the first time which was directly out of high school went to a bible college which was a big mistake. First off they weren't set up for me and my disability and at the time i was on my own so that meant that when i wanted to go out i did and couldn't say no when i was asked to do things. Finally got booted out for not hacking it there and decided school wasn't for me. Its been 10 years and now that Ive grown up and have learned that u need a college education to do something with your life. I wanted to to make the best of my college experience this time. I decided to go threw vocational rehab and they did diagnose me with ADHD and writing my ideas down which I'm not sure how to write that in the diagnose since. They desided that perhaps i should try out aderal to help me pay attention in class which has helped a lot. I don't go to an elite school but i am trying to better my life with an education. Im also trying to do better this time with my school experience and so i did get accommodations. I haven't used the extended time yet and i hope i don't need to but i did get the paper from the student help office just in case i did need the help.</p>

<p>Hey MomPhD, I'm one of those Gifted/LD Kids at the elite engineering schools. I'm at Olin at the moment, but looked at a lot of the others (Rice, MIT, Mudd)</p>

<p>Feel free to get in touch with me since I'm not on here much. (as evidenced from my missing this thread for so long.. .) </p>

<p>Goes for any one else.... but I only know things in the engineering area. I'm bad at the humanities game.</p>

<p>And to compliment tomboy's last post....</p>

<p>I'm also an LD kid at an elite university (top on 15 USNews). My major and interests fall within the humanities, so I could answer any questions regarding that game. :)</p>

<p>McBurney</a> Disability Resource Center - University of Wisconsin, Madison WI</p>

<p>Brown is pretty stingy with accommodations, fwiw. i'll reiterate that tulane is beyond awesome.</p>

<p>but this is (imho) seriously sage advice</p>

<p>DON'T not go where you could go (say Mudd or Caltech or Stanford) because of LD. Schools will accomodate you at least to some degree. For instance, I take a reduced course load because of my issues.</p>

<p>Does anyone have experience with LD/ADD kids at small LACs? My son (a junior) is considering a bunch of small liberal arts schools in the Midwest and the East: Grinnell, Carleton, Macalester, Kalamazoo, Beloit, Bates, Bowdoin, Kenyon, Wesleyan.</p>

<p>My feeling is that the small class size and individual attention will be helpful; if he runs into trouble, someone will notice. Plus, he's introverted and doesn't make friends quickly, so a smaller social setting will, I hope, help him integrate. Anyone have experience with those schools, or have recommendations for other small LACs that he might like?</p>

<p>He's definitely going to take longer to do his assignments than non-LD kids do.</p>

<p>ClaySoul, my suspicion is that your advice is likely to be the correct advice for my son who operates at a pretty high plane intellectually but takes longer on non-math/science work. </p>

<p>What kinds of accommodations did you get from Tulane that you are not getting from Brown? </p>

<p>Are you happy that you switched? [E.g., are the students on the whole stronger or the classes more intellectually challenging? If so, does that make up for the stinginess of the accommodations?]</p>

<p>C'Fang, a friend in a similar situation looked at the amout of reading required in the courses of interest to her (primarily social sci). She knew it would take her much longer to complete reading assignments - - at some shcs the reading workload was so heavy she figured there just wouldn't be enough hours in the day for her to complete the assignments.</p>

<p>Does anyone out there have experience with any of these schools? Accomodations needed to support a type of dyslexia that slows reading speed and copying notes off boards.</p>

<p>MomPhD, I PM'd you.</p>