As a professor, I encourage a student with documented disabilities (learning, physical, or psychological) to register from Day 0 with the disability services office in college and have the appropriate accommodations in place from Day 1 of the semester, even if you think you won’t need them or use them. It’s always better to be prepared. Professors are not legally allowed to give retroactive accommodations that cover the part of the semester prior to the student’s self-disclosure through the disability services office.
It is okay to do a neuropsych. evaluation in late high school or between high school and college and request accommodations, even without previous accommodations in high school. Just don’t want anyone to despair with a newly diagnosed senior who did not receive services in school up to this point. The recent neuropsych. evaluation will be honored by the college.
It can sometimes help for the parent to research accommodations and write a letter for a professional to sign, listing those accommodations. Professionals do not seem to mind this and even appreciate it, and that is a way to make sure your child has access to all the accommodations needed.
Anyone who recommends hiding a disability during application is misguided. Colleges do not discriminate: it is illegal to do so. That said, it should be the student’s choice. There is no reason to reveal it either. For instance, many students will prefer to write an essay about something else. Overcoming the obstacle of a certain disability can be covered in a supplemental essay instead, if the student feels it is an important part of his or her story. The guidance counselor can also mention it, with the student’s permission, or other recommenders. But there is no need or obligation to disclose, not is there a reason to be afraid of disclosing.
I personally do not think it is helpful to evaluate a college’s accommodations beforehand. It can be very difficult to tell. Every college has a different system and some Office for Disabiliies may give a rosy picture when implementation is poor. Expect a rocky start anywhere. Often the system is that students receive letters from the disabilities office to give to professors, that state the student is registered but do not specify the disability. This leaves communication up to the student.
Issues of physical accommodations or access are different. For instance, access for a wheelchair. or the fire alarm alternatives mentioned above. Disabilities offices tend to be pretty good with these.
For health-related disabilities, the health center and a dean or other administrator will be important. Sometimes other staff are involved, for instance, kitchen.
If a college is NOT good at accommodating, but a student wants to go there, I believe the student should apply and attend. If it weren’t for trailblazers, none of the progress in this area would have happened. I do not think anyone will have to hire a lawyer, or anything like that. Sometimes it is just an area the school hasn’t had consciousness of.
Finally, the standard for accommodation IS different from high school. Colleges do not have to accommodate if the accommodations poses an administrative or financial burden, or if it substantially changes the academic program. This murky area is being worked out in the courts by some courageous individuals who have helped us all.
ps often private colleges and universities are more flexible on admission requirements (one of mine didn’t even attend senior year!)
I have a child with extreme and debilitating testing anxiety. We handled it by pulling her out of public school into a progressive private school and applying to test optional colleges. I don’t think she’s taken a test in the past 3 years. We would like to get testing accommodations in college like a separate room where she can walk around if she needs it, but other than an anxiety diagnosis, we’ve got nothing. I’m not sure how to proceed.
Just a couple of quick thoughts that summarize things I’d written earlier.
First, I agree with advice that @readingclaygirl has gotten: No benefit at all to disclosing LDs unless you have to at competitive schools. The adcoms are looking for reasons to reject among many hyper-qualified candidates.
Second, while we visited Disability Services Offices (DSOs) on some initial visits, the real time to visit is after acceptances. Beforehand, they all mouth politically correct platitudes (“we value and support all kinds of learning” yada yada y ada – most of which is patently untrue). When you or your kid has been accepted, you can send the school all of the testing that they will require and ask them to tell you specifically what kind of accommodations and support they will provide. ShawSon is severely dyslexic and languages are a non-starter – well documented in neuropsych reports every 3 years since grade 2. His two top choice at the time was an Ivy, which had a language requirement. He and I met with their head of disabilities services. He was a nice and thoughtful man, but in a sense, he was very circumspect about granting accommodations. He’d need extensive neuropsychological and/or medical data for each accommodation and had only recommended 15 waivers of the language requirement in his 3 years on the job. He said, “I have to maintain my credibility with the committee that decides this and I don’t want to sacrifice that for one student because the committee might not follow my recommendation for some other student who really needs it four years from now.” When we told him that my son had used scribes for longer papers (and SATs, etc.), he said, “I won’t rule it out but we’ve never done it. I’d need to look carefully at the neuropsych raw scores and I’ll need a letter from your doctor about the fatigue issues. But, I couldn’t commit to that now.” The mindset was that the prescribed curriculum was front and center and deviations from this were viewed with skepticism and had to be justified (sometimes at levels that I don’t think are possible).
We told him that ShawSon wouldn’t consider the school unless he knew he had no language requirement – the DSO head wanted to put that off until after ShawSon had accepted. He agreed to expedite the process and waived the language requirement, but ShawSon concluded that this school would be just like HS – all accommodations would be grudging. (Incidentally, I mentioned this to a former client who is a trustee of the school, who was really annoyed to hear that they were losing a brilliant kid to another school because they weren’t welcoming to kids with disabilities).
The next day, we met with the dean of disabilities services and the dean of freshman at a top LAC. When we asked about accommodations, they said, “Scribes no problem, we pay for them. And note-takers and readers if you need them.” The attitude which one dean said, was “If we accept you, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure you succeed.” The school was more student-centered than curriculum-centered. The dean of freshman attitude seemed to be, “We’ll use the open curriculum to help you to balance courses so that you only have one heavy reading/writing course per semester. We’ll be looking out for you.”
My son decided during those two meetings to attend the LAC. He had a great experience there. They lived up to their word and beyond with respect to accommodations and general support. The dean of freshman was my son’s first advisor. He reviewed my son’s proposed first semester schedule and said, “Make it easier. I want you to learn how to succeed here.”
We had a similar experience with my D – asking afterwards about what they would actually do given the data was dispositive in decisions because they knew they would be responsible for losing a student who had been accepted.
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So glad Shawbridge posted!
It is a good point, that disabilities offices can sometimes be, as one person put it, “guard dogs for the curriculum.”
"I think the best place to get information about what documents colleges require from students with disabilities is the website of whatever college you’re interested in. Binghamton University, for example, has 6 different sets of guidelines listed while Northwestern has 9. I’ll be checking the schools my daughter is interested in to find out exactly what they need from us. I know, in our case, that it’s going to include professional evaluation, so we’ll start there.
I fully agree that the best advice is to carefully review the documentation guidelines of the colleges – "
The above is excellent advice as my DS is in the college search now. My DD had a neuropsyche in the 6th grade and another one in the 11th grade–the first the school district paid for (long story) and the second one we paid for. Either way, the reports have specifically what the colleges are looking for in terms of documentation guidelines–the 11th grade report is very precise and geared towards college accommodations. The students and parents should know that each college may differ in terms of accommodations. Some colleges have a dedicated staff, testing room, more resources and some have less. I have communicated with several colleges who have been forthcoming in apologizing for not having more types of services available. Thus, it all depends on the “fit” for the student.
“I personally do not think it is helpful to evaluate a college’s accommodations beforehand. It can be very difficult to tell. Every college has a different system and some Office for Disabiliies may give a rosy picture when implementation is poor. Expect a rocky start anywhere. Often the system is that students receive letters from the disabilities office to give to professors, that state the student is registered but do not specify the disability. This leaves communication up to the student.”
I have to disagree. One should carefully evaluate a college accommodations office beforehand. Some are very forthcoming and blunt about what they offer and cannot offer beyond “reasonable.” MY DD has interviewed staff at the Office for Disabilities at colleges and so worthwhile the time to get an impression of services, resources, etc. For example, some schools have more than others. You are right that some may give a rosy picture when the implementation is poor. My experience has been that some will let you know “up front” what they can offer and what they will NOT offer. One should research the office of disabilities as one would research a college choice. I have researched over 30 colleges and universities (Office of Disability). Goodness, some of the emails from staff at some school are even apologetic over the lack of resources. Research, research, research!!!
I think the “real” info is available once accepted, which is a good time to meet and have a more thorough interaction.
I am glad you have had a different experience.
I object to affecting any of my kids’ choices based on disability issues, which contradicts the whole idea of leveling the playing field, the basis of the ADA. And if we all made choices on this basis, nothing wiould ever change. Better to pick a school according to criteria used by students who don’t have disabilities, and educate or force change.
I’m updating my post, as D has now finished her freshman college year. We are still very pleased with the Disabilities Office at her school. One warning to those who will use a notetaker–D’s neuropsych strongly suggested she become very adept at using her Livescribe pen, so that she didn’t have to rely on notetakers. She had no problems getting this accommodation and for 2 classes, it worked perfectly. These notetakers wrote good notes and emailed them quickly. However, it’s very frustrating if the notetaker is not good about emailing them quickly or lets them bunch up for several classes or weeks.
I do wish her small LAC had better availability for tutors. They seem to be difficult to find in non-science/math courses (humanities type courses are where she needs tutors). I was willing to pay a high rate, but the school didn’t seem to be much help in locating tutors.
You can find good tutors online who will do it in person, online, or by phone. Landmark College will sometimes refer you but I found some good ones near my daughter’s college, with great credentials, online. The college told me they could not refer us to private tutors.