As @palm715 We all have your(and your D’s) back. We are a community here
This experience with D16 and her at-risk math had me reading the academic policies and procedures for her college and major today.
I believe it’s a bit difficult for freshman to understand the policies, procedures, and strategies for the following:
Add/Drop + deadlines
Pass/Fail + deadline
Minimum grade in a pre-reqs
Withdrawals + deadlines
Attendance/Never attended + financial aid
Course repeats + repeatable courses + GPA
Major GPA v. Cumulative GPA
4-year plans with courses in sequence
Auditing a course
Summer transfer courses + approvals
Grade dispute + appeals
Medical leave + the bill
Minimum gpa for honors, dean’s list, etc.
Minimum gpa and pre-reqs for 5-year BA/MA
Minors, gen eds, and majors sharing courses…
I told my D16 that her academic handbook is like her owner’s manual for her degree. Here’s to hoping she reads it. To understand it, and figure all the strategy, she really needs to meet with her advisers.
@dyiu13 yes it certainly is a lot of information for young adults, particularly as they have little experience navigating such thing. Fortunately, most of the things on that list are things that can be looked up on an as-needed basis- no need to memorize the entire catalog. It’s like the owners manual in your car-- it stays in the glove box until you have a problem.
You are absolutely on the right path suggesting that she needs to meet with her advisor. Sometimes at the rush of the beginning of the semester, an advisor is limited in the amount of time they can spend… but this time of the semester is a much better time to have a good-rapport-building meeting.
@psychomomma my D16 got the same message about the meningococcal vaccine. I just took it for granted that they knew what they were talking about. Maybe I need to investigate a little bit more. Can you PM me what you sent in general to the school?
Yes, I’ll send you a pm.
Thx @psychmomma! That would save me $120 for a possible unnecessary shot.
That was my thinking - as well as not wanting him to get another shot of the same thing for no good reason!
@dyiu13 - my D09 has dyscalculia, and while she is able to comprehend complex math concepts, she’s not able to perform simple math without a calculator. Her biggest issue, tho, is understanding the continuity and order of time. She was able to fulfill her math requirements in college, but the whole scheduling thing was unbelievably hard for her (still is!). That said, she was able to earn an IB diploma and graduate from a great LAC with a STEM major.
I wonder if that sequencing thing might be hard for your D, too? If so, navigating the drop/add schedule could complicate things further. That piece of my D’s disability was a real eye-opener for us.
I’m sorry you’re going through this! It’s so hard to see the ones we love most struggle. Please PM me if you’d like to chat.
@dyiu13, did your D have a math tutor in high school? How did she get through high school math?
I can tell you that my S has a math disability. On the achievement test (WIAT??), he scores very high in reasoning (98th%ile) and very low in calculation (18%ile).
He had a one on one math tutor for every single math class in high school except geometry (which took him two years as a homeschooler). We were most fortunate that my oldest son is a math whiz (MIT grad) and tutored him for Algebra, and then another friend of his (current MIT student) tutored him for free (bless his heart) for Alg II, trig, pre-calc and Calc I. All the way through, every week, he had a tutor. Could not have made it through without his friend.
I will be getting him a tutor if/when he has to take math. He has a writing disability, too, and super slow processing. I will nag him and force him to get a writing tutor, too. Whatever it takes…And it might be that he’ll need to go part time to get his degree. He’ll be meeting with his advisor and the disability office to go over options.
I wish your D the very best. I hope she can get what she needs, whether that’s dropping the class or one on one weekly tutoring to just get a passing mark.
@auntiek @sbjdorlo In HS, she was in super-small classes in LD schools, where all students had accommodations based on thier needs. She worked hard and got up through pre-calc in HS with high grades. Even her math ACT and math placement scores were “college-level.” Just to add to the fun, she has reading and writing LDs too. Some scores up in the 99th percentile and some in the single digits. She doesn’t have a sense of time or sequencing, so you’re correct, that just adds to the challenges.
Some moments I wonder how she’ll make it through college – if she has it in her, given the specific demands of typical college programs. She’s trying – I see that she goes to tutoring, I think she gets access to a basic calculator, she has extended time on tests, she talks with the prof. So, I’ve decided to just hope for the best.
Hearing happy-ending college-with-LD stories is balm. Thank you for sharing. Thanks to all for encouragement.
@dyiu13
I am sorry to hear that your D is having difficulties with her math class. I just thought I would share some info on an option the we have found for my D as it might be useful in the future.
Her situation is that she took AP Calc AB in high school her junior year. Although she did very well on the exam and the class, she wanted to try Computer Science her senior year instead of moving on. As a pre-med student, we found most medical schools only require 1 semester of calculus- so that worked out OK for that. However, her major requires Calculus-based statistics and it will have been 1 1/2 years since she took Calc, So I looked around for some way to brush up on her Calc and found an extensive course listing at Bringham Young University online classes. I think I am going to enroll her in Calc 1 so she can review the concepts over winter break before taking the Stat class in the spring.
The class is reasonably priced at approx. $700. I called with questions and they said it is self-paced and the only requirement is to finish one year from the enroll date, They also said you can drop the class up to 180 days after enrollment with no grade or “W” mark and they will give you a credit for future class. Their policies seem like they are very easy to work with. If this math class or other math classes don’t work out for your D, perhaps she could consider this option? Of course, if the course is taken for credit, it would need to be approved for transfer credit in advance by her university.
On a side note, my son had a lot of difficulty in math when he was younger (moderate to severe ADHD). He did not want my help; he just remained completely frustrated with math. I decided that one way to give him a bit of a head start to counter his disability was to give him some review work in the summer. I made sure the work was easy for him to complete so that he did not become frustrated with it. He willingly did about 30 minutes of math 3x/ week over the summer and seemed to be prepared for math classes in the fall since he didn’t get rusty over the summers. Again, not sure if this will help with your D’s disability, but perhaps it will give you some ideas for possible use.
Hope it gets better for your D!
Ha! Thanks. When I was offering options to D16 in case this semester’s math course goes south, I suggested BYU’s Online Independent Study University-level courses. She would just have to get permission to transfer it in, per her school’s policy. 
By the way, the BYU suggestion is great for any student who wants to get an online class done next summer. There are both self-paced and teacher-led options.
@palm715 If you remember, my daughter is in her senior year of engineering at Northeastern. While your daughter has picked up a lot of activities, I know at least a few of them are minimal commitment - like SWE for example. My daughter mostly hears about opportunities for conferences and connections, and occasionally helps at an event for SWE - but it’s been nothing time-consuming. Sounds like she’s acclimating well.
As my daughter told my D16 son (at RIT) when he signed up for way too many clubs - you’ll figure out what to drop by which ones you just don’t feel like going to. He’s found that he can do 1 major-commitment activity. He’s been able to keep 2 which he can drop in and out as time allows. He had to drop a club he was really enjoying because it was just too time-consuming. It’s definitely a balancing act - classes, socializing, clubs.
@krnBoston, great advice! She actually missed the first SWE meeting to go to a glow-in-the-dark yoga class last night. She was due for something “just for the fun of it.” I’ve noticed with all our kids the settling-in process has not always been perfect (or as expected) but I think those life lessons on adulting are as big a part of college as the classes.
I’m definitely worried about D16 overcommitting. The kid in a candy shop analogy above is very apt. She isn’t telling me much but she puts everything on her phone calendar which is linked to mine so I see everything (I’m not sure if she is aware of this and I’m certainly not going to point it out). She is doing Oratory society, drama guild (including auditioning for the fall play), advanced swing dance (never mind that she has no dance experience whatsoever), coding club, Third culture kids club (headed off for a weekend retreat with them), vocal jazz club, dance funk club. Plus a heavy load of classes and she has a $25,000 a year scholarship that is grade dependent.
@palm715
haha… your D and my D must have kindred spirits- my D would definitely make a glow-in-the-dark yoga class a priority.
When i had a short visit with her the third weekend after classes started, she expressed that she was sad that she had missed a “llama petting event”. No idea why they might have llama petting at the university… :-j
@palm715 SWE is always open - it doesn’t matter that she missed a meeting. And glow in the dark yoga sounds like a much better idea - fun, relaxing, and a stress reliever too! We’re also local, so if you have any questions or need anything, just let me know.
My daughter has really loved her years at NEU - great co-ops, lots of travel. I don’t think she’s looking forward to graduating at all.
Finding balance is definitely a life-skill. Many of us are still working on it.
When you’ve been at college almost a month, and you talk to your roommate only to find out she struggled to adjust and hid it from you when she thought you were doing so well. At the same time you were lamenting over the fact, she was so well adjusted. It’s so funny to look back on that
We are very well adjusted now and get along great. We always have, we just didn’t share our feelings.
Got to talk to my D for hours last night, it was very nice. Also, glad I made our parents weekend reservations back in May. There’s another big event going on in town and rates increased 500% and more. Seriously, if I lived there, I would leave and rent my place out on airbnb. Hahaha!