<p>Seeing that Colleges are "lecture" type classes which is about THE worst thing for a student who has ADHD or ADD, what help/options are there for such a student?</p>
<p>deal with it?</p>
<p>What I mean is, ADD/ADHD is seriously overdiagnosed. It seems like everybody claims to have it.</p>
<p>maybe a smaller school would be better for you.</p>
<p>you dont need to go to a university with a 1:400 teacher student ratio.</p>
<p>you can go to a smaller school which has a 1:8 like my prior school.</p>
<p>Go to a smaller school that has a lower student:prof. ratio, extra tutoring help, and more discussion sessions. Some schools also have a department that will be able to assist you if you have a learning disability. (notes taken, extra test time, etc) If you have a really severe case, you may take that into consideration when choosing a major leading to a career that would cause you troubles.</p>
<p>And yes, I do agree it is overdiagnosed, but I have seen people who must legitimately have have ADD/ADHD.</p>
<p>My son is an Athlete but because of the ADHD we placed priority on his education and did not choose any Division 1 schools where the Prof/student ratio is very high so we already have taken this step. From my research not all Colleges have specific help for this but some do so what I am hoping is for other ADHD students to post here telling me of theier experiences and what works or not for them especially if the the College does not have specific help for these students.</p>
<p>Where my son is concerned, there is absolutely NO over-diagnosing here and it will take too long for me to explain why, just know that he will need whatever help he can get and that's what I am looking for, appreciate the help.</p>
<p>I guess your situation may be different than the norm, I'll take your word for it, but I mean, c'mon? What do you expect? Lectures are a H U G E part of college, and you can't expect colleges to offer extra help or cancel lecture classes just because some students have short attention spans or can't sit still for more than 10 seconds. Students aren't gonna get special accomadations for a minor condition like ADD/ADHD. Maybe being wheelchair-bound or something, but not ADD. Far too common. The most your son will be able to do is seek a good tutor.</p>
<p>no offense, but you'll just have to deal with it...i'm guessing that maybe even 50% of every school has been diagnosed (or misdiagnosed) with ADD and they get by. every student gets bored and restless in lecture courses. plus, for general courses, no matter how big the school is, there will most likely be lecture style classes with <em>at least</em> 50 students. we're all adults (somewhat), so hopefully you can deal with it.</p>
<p>in some schools, they allow kids with certain learning disorders, or more severe ones, to have extra time on exams, or be able to take them in private rooms. idk how serious your son's issue is, but if he got through high school, and into college fine, handling a few 50 minute lectures shouldn't exactly be that difficult.</p>
<p>actually big classes now adays are rare compared to 7 years ago.</p>
<p>most schools emphazise small class size.</p>
<p>i hate huge lectures.</p>
<p>"actually big classes now adays are rare compared to 7 years ago."</p>
<p>not true. Supporting examples include:</p>
<p>UNC-CH
UVA
UMD
UGA
Duke
Emory
Boston U
U Conn.</p>
<p>In short, you're wrong.</p>
<p>The biggest class I've had at my school was about 40, and most are 25-30 max.</p>
<p>STEEL - you will probably get a better and more mature positive response in the PARENTS forum.</p>
<p>by that you mean what he wants to hear.</p>
<p>I have ADHD and I also agree that it is seriously overdiagnosed and you should be sure you have it. But you also don't want to start slipping before getting help like I did. So here's some starters. Start making patterns and follow them intensely. Focus your life make daily goals and long term goals something you think about every day. Start up a system for your classes: times to do hw, how to do it, how to apply each subject. System for your life: special well-labelled folders, I have a special 5-subject notebook just for my engineering hw and individiual notebooks for class notes (I always keep my 5-subject with me so I never forget hw), a bin to put important things like your keys. You won't have others to focus you and most of all even worse many to distract you. Also it is easiest to lose focus when you least want to.</p>
<p>And the biggest thing. Don't rule out medication. I finally submitted and got medicine and it was the best thing that ever happened. I can concentrate. Sit for more than 5 minutes. I got in trouble since I was in pre-school and was still getting in trouble at college. My life was an endless search. I didn't realize how bad it was. I took this quiz (<a href="http://www.adhd-kids.com/selftest.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.adhd-kids.com/selftest.html</a>) and scored insanely high. Not a diagnosis but it showed me I was much worse than I had previously thought.</p>
<p>If you let everyone tell you that everyone has to keep focused and you're just not trying hard enough then that's their problem. The biggest obstacle I face with this is unbelievers. People that say, "oh yeah I think I have it because I couldn't concentrate yesterday when I was doing hw in ..." or "oh yeah I daydream a lot" and think that's it. I mean could they concentrate on finishing dinner or writing an email? If so they don't have it. Seriously if that was the worst of it I wouldn't have gotten medicine. It's when you try and you still can't reach what you know is your potential that you need to get help.</p>
<p>On a lighter note, here's some ADHD humor:
Q: Why did the ADHD person open the fridge 5 times this morning?
A: The first time was to take the milk & jam out. 2nd to put the jam back in. And the last three were in a desperate search for the car keys. </p>
<p>You know you're ADHD/ADD when ...
-- You have no complete pictures of you during childhood due to you running out of the frame.
-- You've gone through more hats than razors in a month.
-- You ask someone the same question six times but can't stop staring at their hat ... remember when all hats had tossels?! The little ball-thingys on top?
-- You've gone to the kitchen six times and you're still hungry.
-- You've spent a half-hour searching for a pen perched on your ear. Or sunglasses you had on.
-- You misplace your morning coffee and if you find it, it's always in a different cup.
-- Remember when sitting on chairs backwards was cool?!
-- You have over 3000 bookmarks in your browser.
-- You put your keys in a special place to make sure you remember where they are ... and you forget you did that and spend hours looking anyways.
-- You don't know the day of the week but can't wait for the weekend.
-- You're supposed to be doing something right now, aren't you?
-- Stuff sometimes falls off the car when you're driving because you forgot you put it up there
-- You lose memory games to grandma.
-- Look down. I bet your shirt tag is in front of you, isn't it?
-- You make sure that you get everything ready for an important interview, take a shower, right clothes, good hair, ok ready to go. You're there, damn ... forgot to brush your teeth.
-- You've already stopped reading this.
-- Your answering machine message is: "I can't find the phone right now but leave a message and when I do, I promise I'll return your call". And they never leave one b/c they know you won't.
-- I meant to type one joke then I got started.
-- You are daydreaming and accidently skip to the next one. And you want to go back to see what happens in the other one still.
-- Don't even speak about parking lots!
-- When you visit friends, they don't even say bye to you when you go. They know you'll be back picking up something you forgot.
-- You get really angry screaming, "Where is the goddamn phone!! It's been ringing for ages!!" And someone points to your hand.
-- You seriously can't still be reading this. Unless you're supposed to be doing something. Oh **** I almost forgot.....</p>
<p>I made most of those up. I thought they were funny (because they're true!). If you want to ask me how I survive Chemical Engineering at U of I with ADHD, then pm me. I'd be glad to share any stories or help you out at least with some focus.</p>
<p>I have read all of the posts above carefully and sorry for not having responded earlier, the email notifications did not work since my last post, luckily I now checked in and saw all of these new posts. First, let me say my son has been through "Extensive" and "specialized" ADHD testing since he started HS and even participated in experiments for NYU Hospital so he is NOT "over" diagnosed and this is not becuase we "think" he "might" be ADHD, enough said.</p>
<p>While I agree that he has to "deal with it" in College, to some extent, some Colleges do indeed offer specific help for this like Rutgers, as one example but if he does not end up going there then we will have to get him some extra help, like "tutoring" as one of you stated here. It has been a real struggle in HS these past 4 years as we have trying to get him to maintain an average in the 90's but THE main thing that has always prevented this from happening was "homework" of which he would do but simply forget to hand in sometimes and other times, misplace them. When you get a report card showing 21 missing homeworks in 1 subject alone as an example, this stings and even with the Straterra he has been taking for years now, it doesn't seem to help all that much.</p>
<p>The Straterra has helped with other ADHD symptoms like distraction issues during classtime but it doesn't help his forgetfullness and focusing all that much and we have tried all medications available. My son was a straight A student all the way in Elementary [Private] school and only started slippling when he started HS, he has never gotten under 83% average in HS to this day so most people tell me that I am "expecting too much" e.t.c. ALL of his teachers and myself have one thing above all in common, we all see that this kid is easily capable of maintaining an average in the 90's, how else do you explain that he comes home with an 85% average and there are "negative" comments from some of his teachers using words like "could do a lot better", "needs to study more", "is easily distracted in class" and it goes on and on.</p>
<p>So NO, I am not expecting too much, every teahcer he has ever had say that he is a very bright kid but he is not reaching his potential becuase of these ADHD symptoms [forgetting to do things, missing homeworks, lack of focus during classtime e.t.c]. I have to hope that he will end up going to a College where he will get help for this, if not, then that's where we will have to get all of the extra help for him, I appreciate everyone's comments here, thanks. Please feel free to continue posting!</p>
<p>"deal with it?"</p>
<p>Amen. Everyone has problems, and they cope; you're not special.</p>
<p>"actually big classes now adays are rare compared to 7 years ago."</p>
<p>Makes no sense, considering that college enrollment has obviously sky-rocketed.</p>
<p>"Amen. Everyone has problems, and they cope; you're not special"</p>
<p>Well, you're wrong, my son is very "special", to me, I never asked for "special" treatment of any kind for "my" son alone, what I am looking for are "answers" that will help him with his problems, I am not going to leave him to just "cope", I will exhaust every possible avenue to help my son succeed and not just "get by".</p>
<p>At my school (UT Austin) they have a system for students with disabilities and basically the kids are allowed to take exams without the normal time limit.</p>
<p>This is the case with "certified" ADHD students in most schools but that is only a small part of the problem, like in my son's case, he has always doee well on tests/exams and do not require more time than the norm for this which is why we never asked for it even though he is entitled to it.</p>
<p>The help we are looking for is for everyday regular stuff that most people take for granted, like getting homework/projects done "on time" and remembering to hand it in "on time", making sense of and understanding and focusing on the lectures e.t.c, this is among the things we need help with so I am interested in everyone's strategies/methods who have these exact problems and are handling it well..</p>