Other safeties/matches for sr son who is bright but challenged by ADHD?

College Search & Selection
1

He wants smaller schl - get to know profs, have interactions in class (not large lecture halls), in southern Cal 1st, California 2nd, West Coast 3rd. Doesn’t want to be “too close” to SF Bay Area (where he grew up). He/we’ve ruled out the South (except maybe Florida) & mid-America, open to mid-Atlantic & NE. (Ohio, western PA/MD/VA are far enough culturally fr the NE/mid-Atlantic that they are mid-America.)

His 1st choice: Occidental College (LA). I used to think he’d stand a good chance of getting in, until his 1st & 2nd semester junior year grades fell from straight As sophomore year (& only 1 B freshman yr) to 2 & 3Bs, respectively. (Chance him, anyone?)

10TH GRADE - ALL A’S
AP World History (5 on AP test)
Precalc (honors)
Honors English
Spanish 3
Bio
Visual Art 1

11TH GRADE
AP US History (3 on AP test) - 2 As
AP English (4 on AP test) - 2 Bs
Spanish 4 (honors) - 2 As
AP Calc AB (3 on AP test) - 2 Bs
Genomics (career pathway dual enrollment with community college) - A fall, B spring
Physiology (career pathway dual enrollment with community college) - 2 As

Caveat on grades!!! All achieved w/ADHD meds. He stopped taking (doesn’t plan to resume) meds after finishing AP tests.

12TH GRADE
AP Gov/Econ
English (Mental Health Matters - UC college prep but not honors)
French 1 (no higher level Spanish offered)
Chemistry
Desktop Sequencing (career pathway dual enrollment with community college)
Biological/Physical Anthropology (career pathway dual enrollment with community college)

No Physics of any level. Preferred to take another language over Physics.

9-12 academic UW GPA 3.82
10-12 academic UW GPA 3.77, weighted 4.31 (used by UCs?)
Total UW GPA 3.82
The school district stopped ranking this year, but on last year’s transcript (before the 3 Bs) he was in top 10%.

SAT - Jan 2017 - 1340 (660 verbal, 680 math) -
Reading 32
Writing 34
Math 34

Converted to old SAT scores:
1880 out of 2400
Critical Reading + Math + Writing
SECTION SCORES
Critical Reading
590
Math
650
Writing
630

SAT US History (junior 5/2017 = 720)
SAT Math 2 (sophomore 6/2016 = 580 of 800; 13th percentile) - no extra time accommodation
SAT World History (sophomore 6/2016 = 480 of 800; 11th percentile) - no extra time accommodation

He’s retaking the SAT w/essay in Oct and 2 new subject tests (Bio, Spanish w/listening) in Nov but I’m not expecting much bc he’s without meds.

AP World History (sophomore 5/2016 = 5) - no extra time accommodation
AP US History (junior 5/2017 = 3)
AP English (junior 5/2017 = 4)
AP Calc AB (junior 5/2017 = 3)

He wants a school where he can study abroad for 2 semesters (France, Spain). If necessary, he’s willing to change from bio major to something else in order to study abroad. (He initially wanted a bio major, long-term career goal of genomics research, based on HS experience w/dual-enrollment program with local community college.)

Extracurricularly, 3 yrs varsity soccer (his freshman yr HS didn’t offer the sports he played), 3 yrs varsity tennis, 1 yr water polo (probably varsity - just started playing this yr, so he’s JV but improving fast and V needs players), with a few sports commendations but he’s not interested in playing in college, even D3, maybe just intramural/club.

He spent junior year training with Amigos de las Americas, which culminated in 8 wks community development/cultural immersion/youth leadership in Dominican Republic.

No HS clubs or music/arts.

Summer betw soph/ jr - full-time teaching asst for summer program for underserved middle school students

Summer betw frosh/soph - 100% participation on US end of Spanish cultural exchange program, which led to his volunteering spring junior yr w/program coordinator to recruit host families.

My burning question: which schools are true academic & financial safety schls for him/us?

Financially our fam can manage UC cost of mid-30’s. More if he/we really stretch and borrow more. But UCs aren’t academic safeties. Nor are they schls that I think he will thrive at. I think he will do much better (not just grade-wise, but future/beyond college-wise) at a schl where he’ll develop relationships with his profs/advisors, where schl faculty/staff care and pay attn to the individual student. He also prefers/wants a much smaller school than any of the UCs. And I want him NOT living at home and ideally, attending a primarily residential 4-yr college.

For financial safeties, I started looking at WUE schools and saw UH Manoa and its Honors Program and Northern Arizona University and its Honors College. The questions/concerns there are (1) will he get into the Honors Program (the only reason I would say there is a possible match with those schools), (2) will being in HI be a huge distraction for him, (3) will the Honors Program be adequately “in lieu of a small school” for him - how much bureaucracy will he still have to muddle through at UH, (4) is the Honors Program racially diverse enough or is it mostly smart white or Asian kids? (He is African American bi-racial but identifies as African American.)

I’m also torn about finding the right match academically/intellectually for him. He’s a smart kid (Gifted/Talented) but challenged by ADHD. His grades/HS GPA reflect 3 years of ADHD meds, which he decided to stop taking this summer. So I don’t know what he’s truly capable of academically so hard to match him w/right level of college academics. He has little respect for students who say a class is hard but then don’t put any effort into it (distracted by phone in class, don’t do reading/assignments, etc.) or who are lazy about academics, but w/o his ADHD meds (and even with), classwork and HW assignments, esp history reading & complex math, take him a lot longer than other equally smart students. He’s currently in non-AP English and finding it easy with understandably but disappointingly lower standards. His friends call him an over-achiever!

For academic safeties, there are a couple of “Colleges That Change Lives” that have drawn my attn, specifically Goucher College (Maryland) and Willamette University (Salem, Oregon). Unfortunately, I don’t feel confident in the accuracy of their Net Price Calculators (or son’s ability to secure merit awards) to be able to say, “OK, no need to apply to any other academic/financial safeties.”

I’m beginning to wonder about a Cal State, although I really don’t think any are truly a good match, or a Community College/GTA option.

These 3 schools are currently on his list as schools that I think he could get into and that I think will give us enough aid.

  • Whittier
  • University of the Pacific
  • Cal Lutheran University

My concerns are these. For Whittier: he sat in on a class and was not impressed by the caliber of student there. For UoP and Cal Lutheran: I don’t think he matches well with the kind of people there (not necessarily the academic caliber but the progressive-conservative aspect, as he is more progressive than the students at those campuses seem to be).

I like Lewis & Clark College in Portland for him, but their Net Price Calculator isn’t giving us enough $. Maybe Seattle University. Not much $ from their NPC, either. He hasn’t visited either.

I’ve also recently added U San Diego (private) and U of Portland and U of Redlands but don’t really like any of them for him.

Brandeis is on his list. We visited last spring break; he liked it. Me, not so much (some very large intro classes), but I’d be fine if he went there. He also liked Haverford & Wesleyan but I think those are extreme reaches and if he got in, I wonder if he would survive. He’s crossed off Vassar, Amherst, Wheaton out there; I liked Vassar for him, though, but it’s also a reach. He also visited & has since crossed off Johns Hopkins (also a reach) & Loyola Marymount University (LA).

2

Willamette in OR? My friend’s daughter received a $26k merit scholarship there and her stats are around the same as your son’s.
I think he still has a shot at Occidental, though, especially if he applies ED1 or ED2. My nephew was accepted to Oxy with a 4.24 weighted GPA and a 1310 SAT.
Is your son taking the SAT again? Has he taken the ACT?

3

Emsmom1 Encouraging news! Thanks. My son's SAT was 1340. He's taking it again but this time without ADHD meds so the score might even be worse. He's not taking the ACT. We have thought about ED2, which would allow Oxy to see his 1st semester sr yr grades on an upward trend, but I'm worried about Oxy not giving enough merit/need-based aid in ED and having no other aid packages to compare to and/or negotiate with. I've done NPCs for all the schools but our situation is a bit complicated bc we live in an owner-occupied duplex so have rental income/losses and depreciation so I'm a bit afraid to trust the NPCs, in case I did something wrong or the CSS/PROFILE asks info differently.

4

Look into Univ of Puget Sound, Skidmore College and Rollins College in Fl.

5

First semester sr year isn’t a great time to experiment with going off his ADHD mess. 2nd semester makes more sense, since 1st semester grades will be on his apps.

6

Would suggest you consider carefully how far away you want him to be, given the ADHD and fact that you’re not sure how/if it’s going to be controlled in the future. FAR be it from me to encourage a parent to over involve themselves in their college student’s life but there have been so many posts about kids getting to uni and having a lot of trouble managing their challenges the first couple semesters. Being several times zones and a long plane ride away may make it more difficult than you anticipate to be supportive and keep an eye on the transition.

7

There are many college student, currently, that have various degrees of ADHD. I’m sure your child will be well even if he is attending a University farther away. If he had the ability to play varsity tennis, Soccer and have much higher than average ACT and SAT scores, he should apply to where he fits the average for that school. Let him spread his wings and succeed.

8

I think ADHD and the student’s decision to stop meds needs to be a huge factor in college decisions.

If the expense of multiple airplane flights and hotel bills is not a financial burden, you might consider schools that are an easy non-stop flight from home. For our family, it would not be financially feasible to jump on a plane at the last minute if my child called and needed me there.

Our D attended a school a little over two hours away. We were able to easily attend programs and events, and drive urgent forgotten items to her (luckily only happened once).

Another consideration is cities where you have relatives or close friends to support your child if needed.

And you want to flesh out college support services, a life coach on campus, and possible counselor/medical doctor in the college town. Not just that these services exist, but that you can get students/former students/parents with ADHD experience to highly recommend them.

There are hoops to jump through to get accommodations. Then there is the student’s responsibility to interact with each professor to be able to take advantage of those accommodations. If the student does not talk to the professor and ask for accommodations, there is no safety net.

Tuition Insurance. Check into it.

Freshman classes can be tough for weed-out majors like premed. Set up a very light first semester schedule, or consider picking a school with a block schedule or other unique features that help a new student acclimate. Some schools have a short summer program for incoming freshman, more than just a two day orientation. Some offer a five week research project, others take a group on a week long hiking/rafting type adventure.

And one school we looked at years ago had a first semester freshman study abroad program. No clue which college, just remember it sounded interesting.

Best of luck to you. Sounds like you are trying to honor your son’s desire to get off meds. It will be trickier to find the right fit for next year as you are still figuring out how he will land academically.

9

@1Tiger21 Our son did very well the first 3 yrs of HS BUT BUT BUT he was on ADHD meds and now he isn’t. I’m unsure about what he can now handle academically. He says he does NOT want to play varsity sports in college, only intramural or club (he HAS to be active to manage his ADHD without meds). I am fine with him going far away, if I feel like he is at a school where he won’t fall through the cracks.
@powercropper Great tips about fleshing out college support services, tuition insurance, light first semester. Re: accommodations, thankfully, he is getting much better about self-advocacy in that area. Also, he seemed to grow up a lot in his 8 wks with Amigos de las Americas this past summer, and I feel less concerned about his managing the non-academic side of living away at college.

10

There is no school where you can feel comfortable that your son will not fall through the cracks.

College is not high school. If your son does not turn in an assignment, he gets a zero. Some professors have strict attendance policies. If you miss more than X number of classes, your final grade drops an entire Letter grade.

Unless you have hired your own Life Coach, no one is going to keep track of your son. He won’t see grades unless he logs in, and may not realize how poorly he is managing his academics. No one is going to make him get out of his dorm room and attend classes.

If your family is counting on large merit aid to fund his college education, please pay attention. Freshman status is what gets the merit aid awarded. There are GPA minimums to remain eligible for that aid. There may be other requirements as well, like minimum number of credits earned each senenster. So he may not be able to drop classes he is failing.

So much unknown here. Your son could get accepted, earn merit aid, and still not be set. If he bombs his grades senior year, his acceptance can be revoked.

Sorry that I am so negative in this post. I really care, and am hoping to help you see the big picture.

11

Another factor to consider is the general education requirements. I reread your post, and it might be that he has enough interest to stay engaged in his major, but maybe not so much with the gen ed courses.

Colleges vary with how many gen ed courses they require. Some allow student a lot more flexibility to pick their own courses. A very few colleges use a block system, where you study one (or maybe two?) courses at a time. Short, but intense number of weeks. If you get sick or miss classes in block system it could be difficult to catch up.

I am not familiar with these type of colleges, but maybe other parents can chime in. Or you can do a search and find threads that will be more detailed.

12

<<<
There is no school where you can feel comfortable that your son will not fall through the cracks.

College is not high school. If your son does not turn in an assignment, he gets a zero. Some professors have strict attendance policies. If you miss more than X number of classes, your final grade drops an entire Letter grade.

Unless you have hired your own Life Coach, no one is going to keep track of your son. He won’t see grades unless he logs in, and may not realize how poorly he is managing his academics. No one is going to make him get out of his dorm room and attend classes.

If your family is counting on large merit aid to fund his college education, please pay attention. Freshman status is what gets the merit aid awarded. There are GPA minimums to remain eligible for that aid. There may be other requirements as well, like minimum number of credits earned each senenster. So he may not be able to drop classes he is failing.

So much unknown here. Your son could get accepted, earn merit aid, and still not be set. If he bombs his grades senior year, his acceptance can be revoked.

Sorry that I am so negative in this post. I really care, and am hoping to help you see the big picture.
<<<

This is all so true. Even smaller colleges will not be able to hand-hold your child.

Time and time again we see students (some with Dx’d ADHD, some not) who go off to college and sink. At home, the parents were there helping keep all the plates in the air, even going so far as loudly waking kids up each morning and pushing fannies out the door. Parents of ADHD kids often are like shadows, helpers locating lost/misplaced items, reminders of deadlines, reminders of needed items, bringers of forgotten items, and full-time personal organizers.

I’ve been there with my first child. During his years of middle school and high school, I had to really cut back on this shadowing because he really wanted to have the “go away” experience for college. It was a process. I couldn’t just cut back on everything at once, because it would have been too extreme. Started with a couple of things, including laundry, and as he mastered coping skills for those, we added a couple of more…and so on. It did help him a lot. His ADHD is probably more on the milder side…inattentive with hyper focus, but thankfully does not include the impulsive aspect.

If you want your child to succeed in college, please work on those coping skills now. Start with a couple of things, talk to him about coping skills for success for those goals. If he’s not already doing his own laundry, that can be one of the first items because it forces them to think ahead for what clothes they’ll need. If possible, you might want to sweeten the pot by offering some sort of low-cost/no-cost reward when a goal has been achieved.

I don’t know your child, but for instance, if he’s the type to leave kitchen cabinet doors open (typical for ADHD), when he does that, tell him he must go back and open and close the door 5 times gently. And he has to do that each time he forgets/neglects to close the doors. This does two things, imprints in his brain the action of opening/closing and is a “pain in the tush” to have to do it 5 times when forgetful, so he won’t want to do it wrong. This technique can be applied to a few forgetful behaviors.

13

I agree with your assessment that Whittier might not be a good academic fit for your son. Also Cal Lutheran probably would not be a good social fit. However I’d continue to consider U of Pacific, I think you’ll find it more progressive. But it’s in Stockton; you said he wanted to avoid the Bay Area and that’s pretty close and not exactly the best of the Bay Area. I also think Johnston Center at Redlands might be a pretty good option for him.

If he’s willing to consider Stockton, can you talk him into San Francisco? USF is certainly progressive and they are outstanding with student support.

14

@oneofthosemoms Thanks for college-specific info. I had crossed off USF bc it is SOOO close (Dad works in SF) but I have heard about their student support. I’ll see if he’ll consider it. Thanks for input on UoP progressive relative to Cal Lutheran. Yes, he’s balked at it bc it’s in Stockton/too close to home, but we’ll see. I like Johnston Ctr at Redlands for its flexibility on designing one’s own major/college curriculum (fits well with ADHD being less challenging when the task/course is interesting, similar to @powercropper’s comments) but wonder about son’s academic response to ungraded/written evals of his assignments and classes.

@mom2collegekids, I love your shadow metaphor. I will need to be more cognizant of how much I am reminding him of things (and cut back on that).

@powercropper and @mom2collegekids He has mild ADHD-combo type and we’ve been gradually weaning/watching his independence. He’s responsible for doing his own laundry (last-minute, of course) since middle school (I think - can’t remember for sure), making his own breakfast/lunch/dinner when practice interferes with our family dinner (varying success with breakfast and lunch), managing a chunk of his budget. He successfully sets his own wake-up alarm and manages his own ride to school and checks his grades and assignments online. He sort of uses a planner. Junior year under the duress of 4 AP/honors courses and club/varsity sports, he did occasionally forget to bring his HW to school (and most of the times, I covered his _ss). When he was away this summer, he said he remembered to take his daily anti-malarial meds (life was very routine, so he took it every day after breakfast) and probiotics. His ability to handle HS-level (1200 students) bureaucracy is improving. It’s more of the academic advisor hand-holding I am wanting for him. I went to a small LAC and have a friend who went to Cal - it took her 6 yrs to graduate and she rarely saw her advisor; I graduated in 4, even with a semester off and a semester abroad and am still very good friends with my advisor to this day and the counselor who recruited me to the college (and later returned to the SF Bay Area) helped me when I relocated to the SF Bay Area years after graduating.

15

Is anyone familiar with San Diego State’s Webers Honors College? I’m wondering if that might be a good fit for our son. He exceeds the average academic stats of the students currently enrolled, which makes me think that not only might he be accepted but he might not be over his head academically, even without ADHD meds. And the HOnors College residential requirement and small class sizes make it sound like it could be like a small college environment.

16

I’m glad someone mentioned the Johnston Center. My older daughter (who had received a diagnosis of ADD in her senior year of high school) was a student there and loved it. A big draw for her was the use of written evaluations instead of letter grades.