My daughter has a chronic condition following a virus which she has not fully recovered from. She is a junior and was hit with this issue at the very beginning of her freshman year of High School. Prior to this she was a competitive gymnast and artist and was on track to take AP and honors classes the following year. Unfortunately she has many complications and a tremendous amount of absences sophomore and Junior years and taught herself st home much of the work she missed. She had to drop language after three year sequence and cannot participate in any activities.
Her grades at great, and she will be taking AP Algebra senior year as well as a college English course, but those will be her first weighted courses because we wanted helpbher continue to heal, not overtax her, but she is capable we are just being careful so she doesn’t lose progress made. She is taking the ACT in April for the first time.
I am wondering if the help of her guidance counselor’s explanation, her 504 and her own account of her story will be enough to allow some colleges to give her a chance. Is there anything we can do to increase her chances in the face of such a disparity between her application in comparison to all other application received.
She is interested in Human Rights, Wildlife Conservation Psychology, and Art (drawing). We are looking at colleges in warm environments:
Eckerd
College of Charleston
University of Florida
High Point
Clemson
University of South Florida
Florida State
George Mason
Virginia Commonwealth
North Carolina State
Townson
A solid ACT and great grades in her classes with reasonable rigor. Of course she can. I hope she is feeling better and for the long haul. There’s literally hundreds of top schools and in your state of Florida there’s a lot of choice. FSU UCF USF
uf might be a real stretch. And there’s the New College which is developing a great rep and is a niche liberal arts type of school that might be a good school to consider. Private schools like Stetson Flagler too
Thank you so much for the encouragement. My son is at UNC Chapel Hill and we are live in New York. I was so worried about being far away from him, but he seems to LOVE it so it has made this much easier. Unfortunately, things will be more complicated for my daughter and I hate for her to be far away so I may be finding a way to stay nearby for some of the week and travel home on weekends every other week or so until she is settled and gets a feel for her new surroundings! She really does better in the warmer climates so in order for her to have the best chance of success, we need to put her where her body is happiest!
I will definitely look into New College and Stetson Flagler. I suppose we will have to meet with some fields from disabilities offices too to get a sense of how realistic each school would be for her to get into.
I truly appreciate the encouragement. We are still struggling to balance her previous goals with our new reality. I just want her to be happy: wherever that may be.
Plenty of great options in ny. All the SUNY options and so many private options. Even a school like URI. Check it out. State flagship. Reasonable oos admissions and a wonderful school. And yes check with the disabilities office.
This will help a lot. This plus a good ACT or SAT score will get her into good colleges.
If her health is very slowly recovering, you and she should consider whether she will be ready for college at the normal time, or if she wants to take a year off to recover further. Also, you might want to consider budgeting for 5 years of college in case she wants to drop back a bit in terms of how many courses she takes at the same time once in college.
Unfortunately we may be looking at a lifelong condition, a form of dysautonomia which affects autonomic function, but if she can maintain her current status she will be able to pursue her education though probably more slowly than her peers. Perhaps three courses or sometimes four per semester, no summers in order to rest and we are prepared for this to be anything but typical. She is very fiery and determined but with a wonderful innate ability of listening to her body and mind, knowing when not to push. We are fortunate in that respect. I am willing to help her find a way to pursue the next phase, supporting her however I need to: if she is willing to persevere, how can I not! We just hope that colleges will be able to “see” her for who she is without the transcript and application to provide the clues like other applicants.
Would she consider starting at a community college and living at home until she is less frail? Colleges can be physically demanding-long ways to walk, disrupted sleep, close quarters with lots of germs.
OP - I would do a lot of digging into the support and medical services offered on the campuses your DD is considering. Can she be a full time student with just a few courses/semester? Can she get a single on campus? How would that impact financial aid if that’s a consideration. Supports are especially important if she’s going to be so far from home. Good luck to her!
Roy Croftmom, I wish we were just waiting for her to improve: the fact is that she might, but this is probably a condition that will stay with her for her lifetime and so since she is currently more stable than she had been if she can continue to maintain the present situation, she would like to go to college like her brother and all of her friends so we are going to see what we can do. Momofsenior1, She will definitely need to be in a medical single because she needs lots of rest so we will be asking disability office about what accommodations they are able to provide before we can consider it. I have to say I was tempted to tell her she could not go after this first semester away at college for my son: he was sick more than he was healthy, and ended up with his first ever sinus infection and took anitibiotics for the first time. The lack of sleep and all the germs is a real concern for sure. She has become a fanatic about washing her hands and all surface etc.
I am just wondering if anyone knows of colleges that are more willing to look at circumstance regarding lack of extracurriculars or course rigor. Believe me, I know this is a tall order. I just feel like she has worked so hard to stay in school and maintain her grades despite all the challenges. I know I would have given up and retreated but she wants to continue moving forward even though how she does so may be different from the way she always assumed she would.
We would like to visit College of Charleston, Florida State. University of South Florida, Eckerd, Clemson, NC State University (right by my son at UNC). If anyone has additional suggestions or feedback on these colleges we would be grateful.
My son attends CofC . They have excellent supports in place for students. I also strongly suggest looking at Flagler College . We were extremely impressed when we visited . Their art program was amazing .
Carolinamom2boys, thank you for the information about the support at CofC. I hope your son is happy there.
Flagler has come up a couple of times now so I will definitely have to take a good look at it, thank you. If you don’t mind my asking, what made your son choose CofC over Flagler?
UNC Asheville could be a good addition to this list - it’s also strong in her areas of interest (including a Human Rights Studies minor), in a great artsy town. As a public LAC with an undergrad enrollment of under 4000, it might be more manageable in size than some of the larger public U’s she’s considering. And it’s relatively affordable, which could be important if she ends up light-loading and taking longer to graduate. Good luck with the search!
Aquapt, that is an interesting idea: we travelled through Asheville and the mountains just before we dropped our son off to UNC Chapel Hill. It was awesome! I will research it and we will plan for a visit.
Do you know what their winters are like? Is it shorter than the winters in New York (NYC/Long Island)?
@percussionboymo my oldest son goes to CofC, my DS19 has been accepted at Flagler College and is waiting to hear about CofC for him. CofC is instate for us. My youngest would thrive at either school, but his top choice is CofC for several reasons. 1. Distance 2. He’s very close to his brother and would feel supported there and 3. His preferred major is Historic Preservation and Community Planning which is available at CofC, but not at Flagler. If he chooses Flagler, he will study graphic design. Either school would be amazing for him. Both schools are very invested in their students IMO. CofC is approx 10,000 students , Flagler is about 2500. Both are urban schools in historic cities. You may want to look at some you tube videos to get an idea of the campuses.
The other people on this thread are probably more informed than me, but what about one of the Colleges that Change Lives? I think those are more willing to be considerate of a student’s circumstances. The New College is one of them, and maybe check out Goucher College in Towson, Maryland.
Jacleo, Eckerd is one of those on the list, though we are worried about cost. I have added New College after reading your post though she may find that it is too small for her with enrollment at under 1000 students, Right now she is open and doesn’t want to be in a class of 50 or 100; she wants to be able to get to know her professors or as she says, “what’s the point otherwise? Then I might as well just take online courses!” (Which she doesn’t want to do at all). So we will visit and see how she feels once there.
Townson is also on my radar. Maybe we will visit Townson and. that area during her April break from School. Thank you for the input!
Aquapt, thank you for that link. Ashville sure does sound like a wonderful little protected spot of heaven for a creative person who wants to escape the harshness of New York winters!
Since you original suggestion of UNC Asheville, I have added Asheville to my weather app so we can compare temps, though it seems the current weather there happens to be atypical. Wouldn’t you know they are bracing for a potentially historic snowfall this weekend? Possible 15 inches! I had to laugh when it was mentioned this morning in the news.