<p>I went to an elite private high school and didn’t receive adequate accommodations for my learning disabilities. I graduated with around a 2.54 weighted and had to appeal to get into UC Santa Cruz. Since UC’s are public and therefore bound by federal and state disability laws, I received the support that I needed. I didn’t apply out of the UC system because of this and I was admitted to UC Berkeley for transfer admission a few days ago with a 3.96 GPA.</p>
<p>My advice? Don’t give up and go public.</p>
<p>That’s great! Berkeley has an excellent record of working with bright LD kids. I’m glad you keep going after what you want.</p>
<p>Bravo, Canescans! Would you consider posting what you did in order to receive the accommodations you needed at UCSC? This would be extremely helpful to others. In fact, if you wanted to start a “How I got needed accommodations in college” thread, you’d be doing future college students a tremendous favor. And again, congrats on your successful college career and transfer to UCB!</p>
<p>AnonyMom: At any UC/CSU all you have to do is submit documentation from a professional psychiatrist/psychologist and then discuss what you need from a disability counselor. After that you attend an orientation session and fill a few forms out. Afterwords you just give your professors a piece of paper at the beginning of the quarter to make sure that they are aware and go about your business. It’s that simple. </p>
<p>California has some of the most iron clad disability oriented laws in the nation and I am thankful to reside in this state. If you are a disabled high school student and are worried about your future PLEASE REMEMBER that if you go to a public university you are protected by laws and they want to serve you. In my experience, the DRC center at UCSC is staffed by some of the most caring, helpful people I have met in my life and they will make every effort to ensure that you succeed.</p>
<p>Canescans, the ADA and ADAA apply to public and private institutions. Does California have specific state laws that go beyond ADA and ADAA for public institutions?</p>
<p>Yes. I believe that the definition of disability in California is broader than federal standards. I believe that the relevant state laws are the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and the Unruh Civil Rights act.</p>
<p>People complain that SATs are biased towards affluent students who pay for prep classes. Is there a corollary here to a bias towards affluent students who can pay for psycho/edu reports and consultants to gain advantage. </p>
<p>When a society rewards to the weak, and penalizes the strong, one end up with a weak society.</p>
<p>I just want you to know, toadstool, that not all LD students get advantages in this competition. I have a very severe LD (a result of cerebral palsy) for which I compensated by my unaffected cognitive functions and by busting my butt all throughout secondary school. Although I always had problems, I never got tested for LD. Therefore, I took my SAT without accommodations and got a 1350 (680V 670M). This, combined with my being at the top of my high school class, was enough to get me into Wellesley and many other selective schools (most small liberal-arts schools). I went to Wellesley, which wasn’t the right choice for me due to my LD, but that’s a different story. Again, many genuinely LD students don’t get tested and therefore don’t use accommodations on standardized tests.</p>
<p>toadstool, it’s obvious that you have a belief that helping people compensate for learning disabilities is somehow unfair. It’s not clear to me why you feel it is appropriate (or even worth your time) to try to put down folks with LDs in the section of the CC in which kids with LDs and their parents are seeking advice on how to apply to college, how to manage while they are there, and where to attend given their issues. [As we discussed in an earlier post, you might want to get over it because all of these institution are bound by law to deal with disabilities, but if you want to continue to fume, OK, but why to the folks who need advice and not someone trying to tell them they’re “weak?”]</p>
<p>Given the context, your final statement seems to imply that folks with LDs are “the weak” and those without are “the strong.” I’d generally take issue with your apparent characterization, but, let’s stick with your labels. By implication, you are asserting that a society that provides accommodations to folks with LDs is making itself weaker. This strikes me as unsupported and in the current world, likely wrong. It may well be the case that as we have switched from an economy based upon physical labor to an economy based upon thinking that societies that don’t get their brightest people to use their brains effectively will lose out. [Yes, there’s a cost argument, which does matter because if the marginal cost of getting some of the intellectual benefit exceeds the value of the benefit, we shouldn’t squeeze that hard]. </p>
<p>Reading and writing were not key skills in human evolution until recently and they are not inherently tied to other intellectual abilities. Maryanne Wolf, who studies the neurology of the reading brain, argues that the pattern recognition and other skills that dyslexics have caused them to be the leaders and generals in earlier societies. That is, leadership ability may be negatively correlated with reading fluency. [Indeed, according to Forbes, dyslexics seem to be overrepresented among successful entrepreneurs]. If, by imposing a screen based upon reading/writing skills, we are blocking the path for leadership, we may be doing real harm to our own society’s capacity.</p>
<p>Society is strong based on its ability to utilize the strongest abilities of each of its individuals. Society is, by nature, a collective. To say that assisting those with disabilities to use thier strengths will make that society weak is as ridiculous as saying that Stephen Hawkings was somehow not worth the technology! Silly, in the extreme. Each individual brings strenths AND weaknesses–for example, you seem to be kind of slow at integrating rather obvious concepts–however, you seem to be quick in terms of finding flaws in other people’s creative solutions. Going from there, it would be best to put you in a position to find the flaws in any situation rather than utilizing your rather marginal skills in generating integrated theories. However, there is no question that you will be able to find a solid career which uses your personal strengths. I’m not worried. I’m certain you will be able to work around your relatively limited creativity to find something productive to add to the culture, in spite of the generative and integrative weaknesses you bring to the table.</p>
<p>Toadstool, </p>
<p>If you don’t have an LD yourself; have a child with an LD; have special knowledge of LD’s and their evaluation or treatment; seek help in finding educational solutions or strategies to assist a person with an LD; have anything to offer here apart from ill-informed, repetitive and ungrammatical posts, is there some chance you could just slink back to some other board where you can, perhaps, make a positive contribution?</p>
<p>I also think that you might find it personally enlightening to reflect on why you feel compelled to post on this board in the first place. What is it you hope to accomplish here? What sort of gratification do you gain from your posts here, since clearly you are not here to obtain or offer information or support? If you were to sign your name to your posts on this board and people you value were to see them, would you be proud of your role here?</p>
<p>Toadstool, your use of the word “weak” and “strong” betray the fact that you nothing of which you speak. I don’t spend much time here since my LD child is younger, but in general my instincts tell me he is actually “academically stronger” than his older non-LD siblings.</p>
<p>My son is an aspie in 8th grade who does well academcially and survives socially because of the tremendous effort he puts into trying to make his life work for him. As a mother, I have often found it painful to watch what he has to do and what he has to put up despite all the support my husband and I have tried to give him. Watching someone overcome adversity can be inspiring, but it is also often heartbreaking. That said, I think recent comments relating to Toadstool are too harsh and uncivil, and I believe it is important to remain civil on a board like this. Further, I am not opposed to hearing from those who think differently from myself. Finally, those who take advantage of the “LD” system hurt people like my son more than anyone else, and so I am opposed to the abuse which I know occurs in the diagnostic community, especially with respect to diagnosing ADD. Services must be provided for those who need them, but some common sense needs to be inserted into the process. My experience as a teacher is that the quality of services declines for those who really need them when 20-25% of students are on IEPs. Teachers simply start ignoring the requirements of the IEPs regardless of the law, and parents are often the last to know.</p>
<p>aspiemom, I am OK hearing a number of toadstools comments – she thinks that some people are gaming the system. So do you and I. Although based on her comments, I suspect that she thinks almost all kids are gaming the system. She appears to believe that it is in general unfair to give accommodations; I disagree with that and in some other posts I have tried to explain why I think she is some combination of misguided and wrong. But, I think her comment that implied that kids with LDs were the weak and supporting them by compensation (e.g., rewarding them) and thereby penalizing the strong, we are weakening society as a whole doesn’t have a place in this thread as it is actively undermining kids with LDs and their parents who are seeking advice on how to succeed given the system we have, which in and of itself may be set up poorly as poetgrl has suggested. It is for castigating kids with LDs that toadstool has come in for criticism – and for essentially repeating the same stuff in various posts. I see no reason why a malevolent comment like the last one in her post needs to appear here. Why come on to a thread about how kids with LDs get into and fare at elite colleges and effectively say, “You don’t belong at elite colleges if you need accommodations?”</p>
<p>My concern was that her closing statement was uncivil. I tried to respond civilly to it, objecting to the content and not the person.</p>
<p>Incidentally, your comment about how the overuse of the system relative to expectations, whether due to gaming or just to a bigger population of kids with LDs than was expected, means that the kids who need it have the teachers’ responsiveness diluted or eliminated is quite important.</p>
<p>Shawbridge,
Your point about the “strong versus weak” argument being uncivil is a valid one. That said, I suspect that it wasn’t written with an intent to wound people, although it clearly did. My guess is that Toadstool hasn’t spent alot of time around people with serious, though invisble disabilities, and I am inclined to give him/her a little room for for error. Frankly, I don’t know how smart I was on this score prior to my son’s birth. And of course that it is beautiful part of living with disabilities, learning to embrace and revere that which is different, “imperfect”, in each of us, not just those of us with labels. Corny, but true.
Toadstool,
My apologies if I have offended you.</p>
<p>Question for the brainiac kids on this thread who appear to have done the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest in getting the best of their disabilities. Son is in 8th grade doing very well in publlc school. He has supports and uses them, but they are being withdrawn as he moves into “honors” classes. We applied to highly rated boarding school for son to repeat 8th grade as day student. Son was waitlisted, didn’t get in, and was really disappointed. He needed alot of financial aid and he’s also not a good athlete although he likes to play sports and was eager to play for the school. Anyway, we’re thinking about trying again for grade 9 next year - to repeat again. In the meantime he will attend public high school that is highly regarded. All As except Bs in very difficult accelerated math class, ssats are 95%. Question is whether it’s better to go public even though supports are slowly being withdrawn and “honors” classes are competitive to get into and large, 30ish, once there. We are attracted to small class size of private schools, but we really need alot of financial aid. Pursuing private is stressful, and we wonder if the social fit will be there if successful.</p>
<p>aspiemom, I have two kids. The older one is truly gifted and has major disabilities – reading and writing and processing speed issues of a major magnitude. The younger one is quite bright though she doesn’t realize it and has ADD-like issues and processing speed issues, but these did not really come to the fore until HS. The private HS that she attends suggested we get her tested and is working to support her. But, their capability to support is low.</p>
<p>In contrast, the same HS told us that our son was extremely bright but discouraged us from sending him there because they really wouldn’t cut him much slack – extra time only. By negotiating with the very good public HS and paying for all non-people things myself, we were able to get some reasonable support for him from the HS. [Not everyone was, but I was careful to spend a lot of time negotiating in a nice, respectful way for what I thought we needed. I never found them good at suggesting what was neede]. But, I paid for computers, software, audiobooks, etc. I just asked them to make the appropriate accommodations and supply people for things like improving reading fluency. I also asked them to make modifications in the English curriculum to focus on writing and not literary criticism. They did some of that but not enough and I negotiated with the school district to set up a partial home-schooling arrangement. Lab science, social science, and studio art at the school; math and English at home. Math because the honors classes were too slow (he did junior year honors math in half a year for example). English, because he needed to learn to write, rewrite, rewrite until he could write cogent arguments. One of his last high school English courses was Expository Writing 20, the course Harvard freshman are required to take, at Harvard Summer School. We just couldn’t get what we wanted from the English department there. But, the assistant superintendent of schools was very supportive. </p>
<p>I’d stay away from boarding schools. Your really need to stay involved. Interestingly, in our experience, the public school was much, much more welcoming of parental involvement than the private school. You can spend the money you would have spent on private school (the increment not going to financial aid) to get outside support at the public school.</p>
<p>I used to meet each teacher at the start of every one of my son’s courses. I’d give each a 4 page memo explaining what I knew about my son’s neurology, IQ, etc. and what had worked and what hadn’t worked in previous classes. I told them to expect the highest level of intellectual ability with some real deficits in ability to produce the work and suggestions to work around the production problems. </p>
<p>I don’t think we’d have the same positive outcome (son is going to Amherst, was probably ranked 3rd out of 300 in a very competitive suburban Massachusetts HS) had he gone to the private school.</p>
<p>Shawbridge - Amherst, bravo! What wonderful news for your son! I’m so happy for him!</p>
<p>Aspiemom - I am concerned that a public school is withdrawing accommodations from your son as he enters honors classes. I think this may cross the line of legality. How can they possibly justify the notion that his LD calls for accommodation in, for example, a regular English class versus an honors English class? Our battle against the notion that intellectually talented LD students should be denied the same accommodations as comparably LD but intellectually below average students was fought primarily with the ETS. It is extremely wearing, time-consuming and frustrating, but ultimately more than worth it in terms of providing an educational setting in which your LD kid can thrive. Look at the success of some of the older students on this board, such as the kid who is transferring to Berkeley after the accommodations he received at UCSC allowed him to turn himself around academically, Shawbridge’s kid, who is doing so beautifully, or my kid, who is more than thriving in college.</p>
<p>The Toadstood question – I found Toadstool’s most recent post on this thread offensive and (assuming she wasn’t adversely affected by having the complete works of Ayn Rand dropped on her head from the top of a tall building in her youth) reprehensible. Her comment was in response to an LD kid who shared how his lack of accommodation in hs had affected his performance, but that with the needed accommodation granted in college, he was able to transfer to Berkeley. Champagne all around!</p>
<p>Or not. Toadstood came on to tell the student that he was very likely taking advantage of his SES (like students who use expensive programs to prep for SAT’s) to game the system; that he was weak; and that not only was he weak, but that because society was rewarding the weak (with accommodations) and penalizing the strong (presumably more worthy students who don’t have to cope with LD’s), he was, by extension, along with others of his ilk, weakening and undermining society. This is not the same as suggesting that ADD is overdiagnosed or that there are unscrupulous neuropsychologists up and down the Eastern Seaboard faking test results; it was mean-spirited name-calling and over the top condemnation of an LD 19 year old who deserved a celebration.</p>
<p>Shawbridge and Anonymom,
Since I am new to this thread, I will defer to your judgement on the Toadstool issue.</p>
<p>Shawbridge,
Thank you for your comments. I sent you a private message with more details about our situation. Looking for tips from the new Annie Sullivan. Congragulations to both you and your son for a successful outcome after, I am sure, so much hard work. I am sure you are more than proud of what your son has accomplished. May be hard act for your daughter to follow. My daughter is full of complaints on that score relating to son.</p>
<p>Anonymom,
You are right, I believe, that the withdrawal of supports by our school system is probably not legal. And I have told them I think it is inappropriate, repeatedly. Didn’t sign the last IEP over it. The bottom line is that we will have to litigate to get more support, and we don’t think we want to spend out time, money, and energy going that route. Am I angry about this? You bet! But, when it is all said and done, I have to figure out some way to get along with the SPED people. And to some extent, I am sympathetic to the reality that they have bigger fish to fry. I have worked in the schools and seen first-hand the many needy students out there whose parents don’t advocate for them like we do for our children. This situation puts teachers in a very difficult position.
That’s it for now.</p>
<p>Yes, in the public schools there is some abuse of the system with the ADD/ADHD label and I’m sure we have all witnessed it occuring. Fortunately our system is so small they cannot accomodate everyone and the abuse is weeded out pretty quickly. Waay back when the teachers and GC suspected something was going on with my son, we were really put through the wringer by the district to ensure that my son would have one of the slots that the school had for the LD kids. I am totally appreciative of the assistance we have received and don’t take it lightly. Every district is different, and I feel for the parents whose kids have legitimate issues but can’t get the service. I am sure that this is doubly difficult for parents of bright kids who achieve the norms despite the LD and are shut-out when clearly those kids would be off the charts with the correct support.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Boarding Schools, I know that my case is (as is everybody’s) somewhat unique but anyway… I have quite bad ADD and I go to boarding school and at my school there was a small LD deptartment that helped people such as myself learn to cope with their LD. The school was very tolerant of even the most eccentric coping mechanisms (such as knitting during lectures), as long as they could see that they were helping.</p>
<p>This was a HUGE step up from my middle school which said to my parents “he has an IQ of 185, ADD knocks him down with everybody else.”</p>