There’s hundreds of schools. So we’d need to know wants and needs. Engineering and physics are both high intensity majors.
Case Western and Rochester may be worth exploring.
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Could you clarify what you meant by wants and needs?
Sure. Size. Weather. Urban/suburban/rural. Greek life ? Sports ? Costs/merit. Things like that.
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There really is not a simple answer or blanket recommendation anyone can make without knowing what kind of support your student requires. There are students with ADHD attending and thriving in just about every college in the country, including the Ivy League . Does your child currently receive accommodations or learning support? Need help with executive functioning? There are schools with formal programs like the SALT program at The University of Arizona and the Skill program at Auburn. I believe there is a similar program at UCONN. The ADA requires all universities to provide reasonable accomodations for documented learning disabilities. I have two ADHD kids. One has an engineering degree from Auburn, the other is currently a physics major at the College of William & Mary. Both kids needed only basic accommodations such as extended time. We found that public universities generally were more generous with AP credits which allowed them to bypass English and history classes that would require a lot of reading.
https://salt.arizona.edu
https://cws.auburn.edu/Accessibility/cm/skill
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Thank you for your insight!
Currently, he only receives extended time for math test and preferred seating for English He does well with Adderall XR and scored almost perfect with his PSAT.
I forgot to mention that we hired a in person tutor to help him with study habits once a week. He connects well with this tutor although it’s different from a trained executive function coach . The executive function coaches we could find only offer virtual sessions through zoom, which he refuses.
It doesn’t sound to me like your son needs a formal program. Also keep in mind that boys are slow to mature. At the beginning of junior year, I had serious concerns that my younger son would ever be able to handle going away to college. He was a discombobulated mess. I was getting daily calls from him asking me to drive to his school because he forgot his lunch/tennis racquet/homework or whatever. There were several instances of panicked texts that he had to take a test or write an in class essay and the teacher never told him about it. Yet somehow all the other kids knew about it 
He worked on organization and study skills with our school learning specialist and by senior year everything was under control. He just completed his first semester of college, made the dean’s list and is doing great.
As far as colleges go, I don’t think the ADHD is going to limit your son’s options. It takes a little bit of digging, but you can usually find basic information on a schools disability services webpage. Some schools may have executive function coaches on staff or have lists of practitioners in the community that they recommend. We also did a deep dive into the curriculum at the schools we were looking at in terms of gen Ed requirements. At William & Mary, for instance, the foreign language requirement is met if a student takes 4 years of language in high school, and he can opt to take art classes instead of English. Open curriculum schools like Brown can also be a great option.
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If your son is seriously interested in engineering, then I would recommend narrowing possible to schools that are ABET-accredited in his fields of interest. ABET-accreditation isn’t super important in all engineering fields, but in some like civil engineering, mechanical engineering, etc, it is. These are all 719 ABET-accredited schools that offer a Bachelor’s in the U.S… Do you know what type of engineering your son might be interested in?
These are some schools that you may want to research. Thery’re generally mid-size to large, but with one exception, I tried to max at about 15-16k undergrads. These schools are generally either in urban areas or not far from them, and none should be in places that get too hot. The schools are roughly sorted from least to most competitive, but the vast majority of this list are schools that are more likely to look for reasons to accept a student, rather than to reject them.
- U. of New Mexico: About 16k undergrads
- U. of New Hampshire: About 12k undergrads
- U. of Cincinnati (OH): About 29k undergrads. If your son likes the ideas of extended time at co-ops or doing research, then this may be a school you’d want to look into more.
- Rowan (NJ): About 15k undergrads
- Marquette (WI): About 8k undergrads
- U. of Louisville (KY): About 16k undergrads
- Gonzaga (WA): About 5k undergrads
- Seattle (WA): About 4200 undergrads
- U. of St. Thomas (MN): About 6k undergrads
- U. of Hartford (CT): About 4k undergrads here and classes tend to be much smaller than at other universities
- U. of the Pacific (CA): About 3300 undergrads
- College of New Jersey: About 7k undergrads
- U. of Vermont: About 11k undergrads
- Syracuse (NY): About 15k undergrads
- Lafayette (PA ): About 2700 undergrads…might be a little smaller than he thinks he wants, but thought it was still worth mentioning.
- Fairfield (CT): About 4600 undergrads
- Lehigh (PA ): About 5500 undergrads
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My son is currently a third year at Emory. He chose to attend the smaller campus of Oxford for the first two years. He has struggled with ADHD as a Dx since 2nd grade as well as a processing disorder. He is on dean’s list. All universities have an office for special learning needs and accommodations. A student with accommodations reached out to that department typically after enrolling but before starting the school. For my son he had to send a note from his doc including needs. He then met with the department virtually and a plan was set for him. Each semester, when his classes are settled, he tells the department and all his professors receive a letter explaining his accommodations. He then meets with the professors to figure out how it will work for each class. Officially he is supposed to initiate that meeting but so far the professor have reached out to him. He feels he has all needed supports.
My daughter is at CWRU. She doesn’t have accommodations but her second cousin is there as well. She does receive accommodations and we have heard from her parents the school has also been wonderful.
My sister went to Hofstra in the 1990s - even then the school was set to assist with accommodations. She has a processing issue and the school was wonderful. Her roommate had a Dx of dyslexia and attended Hofstra New College because it had even more supports.
For ADHD most schools should be fine. Find places he likes and then speak to the department to see how accommodations work.
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You are super helpful! Thanks so much! I’m optimistic that he will continue to mature. He is already showing growth in the past year. Another option he and we are open to is taking a gap year before college to give him more time to develop his executive function skills under our support.
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Thank you for your helpful insight!
Both Emory and Case are on our list to consider. I have not heard of Hofstra, but will look into it. Not sure if his GPA is good enough for Emory though.
He really likes the idea of Open curriculum at Brown, but his GPA may not be good enough for it, unfortunately.
Brown is a reach for everyone. There are other colleges with open or more flexible curriculum you could look into. I’m an Emory alum, and as much I love the school, it doesn’t have engineering and the physics department is quite small. They are a solid pick if he is interested in biophysics, but otherwise there are better choices. Case could be a great option.
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Emory really is holistic so he would need to tell his story. My son had one year where his grades were all over the place and it was junior year. In the end it was As and Bs. He took meds for adhd until 8th grade. Then he did well without them. But then he hit junior year and oops. Took a while to get his meds right again and then accommodations in place for testing. He explained everything and so did his guidance counselor. He also wanted the smaller school of Oxford so being willing to go to either campus helped him too. I am an alum (that gives very little help) but I used to do the alumni interview. It can be surprising who gets a yes and who gets a no.
Thank you so much for such an extensive list. I will definitely look into these schools.
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That’s great to know. I heard the general consensus is not to disclose ADHD in their application. It sounds like you child disclosed it and it did not hurt him. Did I get it right?
Yes. He disclosed it but not as an excuse. He talked about how he learned to live with it and excel with it. Some people use it as a crutch - that wasn’t his discussion.
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Elizabeth Hamblet has some good advice. College Search: Focusing on Fit - LD Advisory
Your kid should really think about how they learn best. My oldest has inattentive type ADHD and had been in an extremely large, super competitive public HS. She did not thrive in that environment. My kid is also STEM oriented - she was thinking about engineering but didn’t want to commit to it but also liked history and art a lot so I suggested liberal arts colleges (as they are designed to let you explore your interests). She decided that she was also looking for colleges with smaller class sizes (easier to get attention and to pay attention), where the professors were invested in student/prof mentorship and teaching (as opposed to research), where there weren’t a lot of distractions like crazy parties on a Tuesday, where people went to class and that had a more open curriculum. She also decided that living on a campus was a must (easier) as well as having an inclusive meal plan with lots of open hours. My kid asked to connect with a student with ADHD at each college she was interested in her search process, which helped a lot. Her list mostly ended up with academically oriented LAC’s. She ended up at a small college - so far it’s been a good fit. She’s studying economics and physics. She has the option for 3/2 engineering program but she thinks that a masters in engineering would be a better fit. There are some liberal arts colleges that offer ABET engineering like Union College, Bucknell and Trinity College.
Other kids may need more structure, either from the curriculum or a program, others may need a place where they can hide a bit more. Others may need something less academically intense or a million other permutations. Good luck to your son!
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You make some great points. I was actually going to post the same thing about understanding what type of learning environment will work best. LACs can be a great option. A lot of ADHD kids feel like they would be lost in the shuffle at a large school. Your daughter sounds a lot like my youngest. He preferred smaller schools and felt very overwhelmed on a larger campus. He loved the small class size, focus on undergraduate teaching and access to professors at the LACs, but found a great fit with a mid size university that shares those same characteristics. We found the lack of course offerings in the physics departments at some of the smaller schools to be a drawback. It’s not unusual for certain courses to be offered only once a year or once every other year. Research opportunities seemed much more limited as well. I’m sure that’s not the case with all LACs, just something to be aware of.
My older son opted to study engineering at an honors program at a large state school. He was able to take most of his intro classes in a small setting with 20 or so students instead of a large lecture hall with 300 students. It provided more of an LAC educational setting within the larger university. The honors housing was also crucial for him. He lived in 4 bedroom, two bathroom suite style apartment with 3 other honors engineering students. He loved being able to escape to his own bedroom when he needed some space, but still had the social aspect of having roommates. My younger son has had to adapt to a traditional dorm room setup with a roommate. He requested a single, but his university wouldn’t grant his request They told him he could go to the library.
One other thing I am wary of are the 3-2 programs offered by some LACs and places like Emory. They are generally a marketing ploy to lure in students who might be considering engineering. Very few (if any) students actually complete these programs. Most kids don’t want to leave their LAC and their friends after 3 years. Many also find out that the engineering school does not provide the financial aid that the LAC was giving them. If you want an engineering degree, go to a school that has engineering. I don’t think there is any advantage to having two bachelor’s degrees. Makes more sense to do what you daughter is considering and get a master’s in engineering after completing the BS in physics.
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