Pomona VS Duke VS UCLA - Question from a Disabled Student Moving to the US

Hi, everyone! Thanks so much again for all of these comments :slight_smile: They are SUPER helpful!

I truly appreciate everyone’s advice about living on-campus, and I am starting to seriously consider it. However, considering that I need to make a decision within the next week or two (I need to commit earlier so that I can apply for a gap year, etc.), I think it is unfair to my parents (who are paying for my education) to drop the bomb now, as well as having other concerns for the whole family that are more personal. In fact, I casually told my parents the other day about all the advice I’d been receiving about living on-campus, and they brushed it off. I think I can live off-campus, even though I understand all the amazing opportunities I’ll be missing. Thanks to everyone regardless for opening my perspective and for truly caring about my college experience! :smiley:

That being said, could I please receive advice regarding coping with living off-campus? I understand that it will be much harder to integrate and have a great social life, as well as being far away from resources, but could this be balanced by participating in some clubs? Do you have any tips for having a good social life while living off-campus? I’m starting to understand the implications of living off-campus and would like to prepare for the difficulties!

I have contacted all the disability offices and am in the process of gaining more information by continuing to talk with them. They’ve all been really helpful and so far, all services appear to be similar, which will make it even more difficult to choose!

Unfortunately, I am in enrolled in the IB program, so I have my final exams in May. That means that I can’t visit the campuses because I need to revise. Also, because of my condition, a trip to the US and from end-to-end will probably take a lot longer than for other people. However, I have been to UCLA (thank you to those who have told me about its campus - I didn’t realize that it was so hilly and am really glad to have this information!) and my dad visited Pomona last year while on a trip. Of course, at that time, we all thought Pomona was a reach so he focused more of his efforts on Scripps and didn’t really check the Pomona campus…

Thanks to everyone for this great advice! I’m really learning a lot.