Strange, brilliant square peg applying for COLLEGE!!!!

Parents Forum
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<p>First, please feel free to direct me to any proper locations on the site that I may not have found poking about on my own.</p>

<p>Second, this is my second child, and so I have been through this before (my first is now a senior in college) -- but times change, and they are completely different species.</p>

<p>So... this one, we will call him Mr. Q (for Quirky) is both brilliant in an almost spooky way, especially in math, science, logic, analytic thinking. He has language based learning disabilities, and is officially dyslexic... but he is smart enought that he can read well enough and on his 10th grade PSAT without any prep he scored the equivilent of a 630 verbal and we expect a high score in math as he tests well (he may need time accommodation, but maybe not). His writing score will be low, but he actually writes competently, though he hates it, because he is a perfectionist, thinks clearly and can make a point. He can't understand metaphor well, but he can argue facts. Autism/Asperger's is not in his diagnostic dough, but it is sprinkled in his flavoring for sure.</p>

<p>This is a child who could not function in the public schools and was expelled in 6th grade from a private special ed school for "behavior." he has since been in a teensy alternative private school where he has thrived... starting calculus in 10th grade, but hardly passing a single unit of English... getting A's on papers when he does them, and contributing to class discussion but almost never handing in all the work. he gets A's in all his science classes, but the hardly track a typical school's curriculum, and smart as he is he won't have taken a single official AP course... although we will be working on having his take the calc AP class. (His subject classes other than math and reading group are 2 hours a day for 7 weeks, then they switch off). He is probably the most gifted (that is smart, able to process new information and understand it, able to reason) student there, or one of them.</p>

<p>The school offers no extracurriculars, but does have "afternoon" classes - some sports, art, which he takes and does fine in. they require an internship every semester, and he has worked retail, for a non-profit and for a computer repair shop. HE HARDLY EVER OTHERWISE LEAVES THE HOUSE. At home he snarfs up anime and lives on bandwidth and ramen. </p>

<p>he applied to transfer HS this past year and wrote a very detailed essay about "something important to him" -- net neutrality and censorship. At his interview he said I don't know or shrugged his shoulders to just about everything. he was not accepted (I think because changing curriculum mid stream wouldn't work, and because he still doesn't always hand in English/writing assignments.)</p>

<p>He, duh, wants to study math-computers-physics-something along those lines, and eventually get a job where he can work by himself as much as possible.</p>

<p>How does a person like this apply for college successfully??????????????????????????????
How does a parent manage the process??????????????????????????????????????????????</p>

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<p>[RIT</a> | Disability Services | Frequently Asked Questions](<a href=“http://www.rit.edu/studentaffairs/disabilityservices/faqs.php]RIT”>http://www.rit.edu/studentaffairs/disabilityservices/faqs.php) </p>

<p>I know that R.I.T. is usually referenced in guide books about colleges for LD students.<br>
It has a great reputation, you may want to check it out & I am sure other CC members will have suggestions.</p>

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<p>hi, my S–now a computer science major–also wrote his essay on net neutrality! Since your S’s strengths and weaknesses are so glaring, I think you should look for a program that plays to his strengths. An engineering school or polytechnic institute would allow him to concentrate on the things he enjoys and is good at. Their admissions committees might also not be bothered by a lowish verbal score or mediocre grades in English (my son’s friend, a really brilliant engineering-oriented kid, actually had to go to summer school because he flunked freshman English in hs, but he still managed to get admitted to MIT). A traditional college of arts and sciences will typically insist that each student fulfill distribution requirements across the curriculum, in humanities, arts, social sciences, etc.</p>

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<p>Replying to the suggestion of SLUMOM, who cross-posted with me: my nephew is at RIT in the computer game design program and loves it. There are terrific internship opportunities. It’s not as hard to get into as MIT, CMU, etc.</p>

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<p>Landmark is good for dyslexia, but don’t know if that meets his other needs. Lesley University also has some programs for kids who are “square pegs,” but I don’t know much about it.</p>

<p>Getting accommodations or even understanding at a college level can be a lot different than in previous settings, so wherever he applies, it would be good to talk with the disabilities office at some point.</p>

<p>Tech. programs sound good academically for him, but then there is the social/emotional piece in going away, living in dorms, isolation etc.</p>

<p>You will figure out a way…and more people here will have suggestions. Good luck…</p>

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<p>Your son has alot in common with my 10th grader, and one school that is on our radar is CMU - great tech school and strong support for Aspergers.</p>

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<p>Alternative School? That’s where they send the kids who are too bad for normal school lol.</p>

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<p>I highly recommend checking out RIT.<br>
How good is your local community college? My oldest son has many of the same traits as your son. Our local community college is very good. The maturity that he gained between 17 and 19 was astounding! He is still at home a second year, however I would have felt much more comfortable sending him to school this year if he’d wanted to go. We spent his freshman year really pulling back and providing backup support where needed so he’d be ready to go. It absolutely was NOT the 13th grade. That would have served no purpose.</p>

<p>It’s simply one option to consider.</p>

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<p>I’d be worried about what your kid is going to do faced with college freshman English requirements and distribution requirements. He may want to look at schools that require less of these. CMU has a fair number of distribution requirements and at least for computer science, I think most kids go in with a good number of APs.</p>

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<p>I’d look at Reed.
;)</p>

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<p>I highly recommend you explore the SALT program at the University of Arizona.

Alternatively, consider a small LAC near you that can give his lots of support. College can be overwhelming for many, but most especially for the square pegs.</p>

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<p>Silverseas–</p>

<p>I have a brilliant dyslexic, dysgraphic, who is doing marvelously well in college, nearly a 4.0…But, she chose the path of least resistance and did not go to the most rigorous…read: stressful/competitive peer culture…school she could find, but chose the place she felt best fit her own particular needs.</p>

<p>There is a sometimes poster Shawbridge, whose son is a brilliant dyslexic who is at one of the very top LAC’s in the country, and who really researched this thoroughly, and I would highly recommend PMing him. He’s an expert on this stuff, imho.</p>

<p>ETA: There are a couple of books I would recommend to you, one in particular is “The MInd’s Eye”…which explains dyslexia well to those of us who do not have it.</p>

<p>Also, there has been a lot of research recently which concludes that something happens in the brain development of dyslexics around the age of 20 which explains the brilliance of previously mediocre dyslexic students like Einstein and Churchill, etc…Which might indicate that a gap year is very beneficial in cases like these.</p>

<p>YMMV</p>

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<p>Thanks for the vote of confidence, poetgrl. As poetgrl mentioned, ShawSon is an extremely smart, severely dyslexic kid with a speech delay. He has no social issues. He’s a self-declared geek. He likes fantasy novels and has not figured out girls – despite the apparent overtures of several very nice, attractive young women. He’s maturing slowly in that dimension, we think. But, he has no problem advocating for himself. And he has brass balls – as a severely dyslexic kid, he chose to compete in Moot Court in HS (and nothing helped his writing more as the desire to win trumped the pain of writing) and Debate in college (and his speech delay is receding).</p>

<p>ShawSon chose his school, one of the elite LACs, in part because they have no distribution requirements to speak of and in part because after he was admitted, the dean for disability services and the dean of freshman both assured us that they would work with our son and make the needed accommodations – and they have. He actually won a prize for academic performance last year and had great grades and a terrific academic experience. He is working very hard and is frequently quite tired.</p>

<p>Here are some of my conclusions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Choose a school with no or non-intrusive distribution requirements. There is no way, for example, that he could have survived at my alma mater, where he would have been stuck with some humanities courses with 400 pages of reading a night. I am a math-y type but am not dyslexic and I suffered in those courses as well. Unlike me, he can do things like literary analysis, but his brain would explode if he had to take the courses that I am recalling.</p></li>
<li><p>Have all of your documentation in place by April. If your son needs accommodations like extra time or note-takers, he will need them at least as much in college. He will not get them unless you have documented things out the wazoo.</p></li>
<li><p>Visit the schools to which he is accepted AFTER he is accepted and meet with the Dean for Disability Services at that point. Send the Dean of each such school your documentation before the meeting. Ask them what kind of accommodations they will offer. If you go before being accepted, they will not give you a thoughtful answer but will give you the normal lip service about doing all kinds of things but after your son has been admitted, you may be able to specific information about what accommodations your son will get. Some schools will say, “We have a process. Once you choose to accept, then we will run it through the committee … and let you know.” That was not good enough for us. ShawSon can’t do foreign languages (this is not a statement that he finds it hard, but he doesn’t hear things the way we do – he puts the T in Tone Deaf). We asked his first choice school, an Ivy, that has a foreign language requirement if they would waive it. We got the process response and replied, “Look, ShawSon won’t attend if he has to do a foreign language. We need to know before the witching date.” While according to our neuropsychologist, it was an open and shut case, the Dean sent it out to his psychologist and asked for raw scores (which our psychologist said would give him no information but we provided nonetheless) and eventually let us know that they would waive the requirement. But he was so bureaucratic and let us know that to get a note-taker or a scribe would require the same sort of review. So that school became second choice and the LAC became first. At the LAC, once they reviewed the documentation, they told me, “If we admitted your son, we’ll do everything we can to make it work.” They’ve been good.</p></li>
<li><p>We still provide support from afar. We have someone record stuff electronically for him – chapters of textbooks, etc. – that we cannot get on audible or RFBD or from the manufacturer. He’ll sometimes call and ask to dictate an email or even a short paper. He’ll dictate on Skype and I’ll email back. [He should be using Dragon, but he doesn’t use it often enough and especially not when he feels the pressure of a time crunch.]</p></li>
<li><p>ShawSon needs to advocate regularly. He has to talk with the Dean at the beginning of each term, with each of the professors from whom he wants accommodations to work out the logistics of exam-taking. He works out arrangements with note-takers. He goes to a person at the library to get her to order audio versions of text books (but he has been weak at that).</p></li>
<li><p>ShawSon didn’t need a program that would supervise and check in. We provide some support from home (the reader used to provide help with work planning, but ShawSon has become good at that, but she reminds him about life planning – year abroad meetings, internships, health stuff as he is pretty fragile from an immunity standpoint). There are programs like the one at Arizona and I think there is also one at University of Vermont, where there is more hand-on supervision. That may create less of a need for self-advocacy.</p></li>
<li><p>A small school is very good for ShawSon because he likes to talk/debate in class and professors can see how smart he is before he completed any written assignments. [Less relevant in math class, but has been relevant in economics]. He also aggressively gets to know professors, which a shy kid who recedes to his room might not.</p></li>
<li><p>Incidentally, some schools may not be staffed by competent personnel in their disabilities services offices. I know one mother whose son went to a small-ish engineering oriented school and the one person disabilities left and was replaced with someone with no competence and it was very difficult. </p></li>
<li><p>ShawSon took a gap year and would recommend it. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>I hope our experience was helpful to you.</p>

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<p>I get the impression that RPI could be a match, if not as extensive a support program as RIT.</p>

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<p>Great information Shawparent! Wish we could sticky your post!!</p>

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<p>In preparing your student for college I recommend that both of you read these documents from the Office for Civil Rights, US Department of Education:</p>

<p>[Students</a> with Disabilities Preparing for Postsecondary Education](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/transition.html]Students”>Students with Disabilities Preparing for Postsecondary Education)
[Dear</a> Parent letter from Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Stephanie Monroe](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/parent-20070316.html]Dear”>Dear Parent letter from Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Stephanie Monroe)
[Auxiliary</a> Aids and Services for Postsecondary Students with Disabilities](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/auxaids.html]Auxiliary”>Auxiliary Aids and Services for Postsecondary Students with Disabilities)</p>

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<p>absolutely brilliant replies, and on the whole much more helpful than the college counselor that the private school uses who spoke to a small group of us last night (and left me feeling very depressed.)</p>

<p>Reed has been perfect for my friend’s brilliant, classically dyslexic Aspergery daughter, they have almost literally saved her life and sheparded her through undergrad years. I can’t imagine CMU, they rejected my other son with a zillion AP’s and 750 math SAT and good recommendations…</p>

<p>I am, however, cheered by spending some time on our county’s community college website. They are consistently rated #1 or in the top ten in the country. They have many transfer programs, as well as 2 year programs, in engineering and computer sciences… and claim to have a high transfer rate into top engineering programs including our state flagship school, MIT, RPI, Georgia Tech etc (not necessarily my kid, but it speaks to the quality of the program. They also have a computer gaming program, that can be a 4 year program in conjunction with a 4 year college. Their math dept has sufficiently upper level math for 2 years.</p>

<p>So I have decided to consider the CC our “Stand-by” plan… thus helping to alleviate my stress. Over the next year my son can change the plan, reject it and substitute another one, etc etc – but I have explored this enough to feel it is a decent baseline. I was amazed at how much my other son grew during the college search and app process, I am sure this one will too, and whether this is the final plan, or he applies and gets into RIT/Reed/State U etc, who knows yet.</p>

<p>My son’s eyes just lit up (with relief?) when I told him about the CC (and gave it the seal of approval… he has high standards) and heard about open enrollment and NO ESSAY.</p>

<p>Re his special needs: his dyslexia is very atypical (per testing) and he gets by in school with nothing that resembles a formal accommodation. Yet, everyone who deals with him accommodates him all the time – he is infinitely logically, terribly formal, avoids in person social interaction, overly literal, a creature of rigid routine, marches to his own drummer, intolerant of fools, lazy thinking, stupidity, inconsistency and injustice. He has an anxiety disorder (duh) of great magnitude. He has already asked if he can do all his college counseling by email.</p>

<p>Enough from me. Your comments are helpful and supportive. Much thanks.</p>

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<p>Much good advice above. Kinda makes you wonder why your son’s school hasn’t provided any leads on schools. What do their guidance counselors do?</p>

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<p>It is not clear if you have had your son tested for the variety of disabilities you are reporting. If you have not done so you need to get it done by an appropriate professional so he/she can determine what your son’s disabilities are and make recommendations for academic adjustments in college. Inclusion of proposed accommodations by the assessing professional must be clearly related to the disabilities and are very important. The disability office will play very close attention to the recommendations. The testing should be fairly recent. Make sure that the tests used are listed and that the results are discussed. The tests need to be appropriate for the disability being tested for. Make sure that the tests used are age-appropriate,i.e., he should be tested as an adult. </p>

<p>If your son is not yet in 12th grade it is possible that you can request that your local school district undertake the testing regardless of whether your son is in public school. Do that immediately. School districts do not have any obligation to test students to determine accommodations in college only for successfully completing school. </p>

<p>If you do not want to go that route, go to a private person–a testing psychologist or psychiatrist would be a good option. Do not go your GP and have them just write a note on a prescription pad. That will probably be rejected by a college as insufficient. </p>

<p>A private professional will be expensive, but it will be worth the money. Do not skimp on this. Submit the documentation early in the summer before he enters college so there will be time for you to dispute the college if they reject some or all of the proposed accommodations. Make sure that you and your son understand the procedures used by the disability office of the college and follow them. Failure to follow procedures that are reasonable and non-discriminatory could serve as the basis for a refusal to provide accommodations. It would be a mistake for your son to try and get accommodations from individual professors without providing them with a letter from the disability office. </p>

<p>If you and your son haven’t already begun this process, college is the time to let your child with a disability go as much as possible and have him become his own advocate. Have him take advantage of all the support programs, like writing and speaking clinics and counseling, that the college offers so he can succeed in the work environment once he is out of the educational system. There are very few jobs these days, and especially in the sciences, where people do not work in groups and have to get along with other people to be successful.</p>

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<p>silverseas, you are taking the first, most important step, which is to recognize the unique nature of your son and to seek advice in this situation.
I am reading into your post that your son is socially awkward…is this the case?
If so, I think that your first concern could be working on the life skills of engaging with others socially. If he indeed needs help in this area, it would be important to get some coaching before he goes to college…so that he can negotiate the many social challenges that he will face. He may need help in learning how to ask others questions about themselves, how to act interested in others during conversation, how to read cues, how to tell when others are joking, how to use communication techniques that some call “therapeutic communication” but actually work in just normal conversation, and more. Perhaps he works on these at school, but if he does not, perhaps you could ask administrators at the school about this.
If you can’t find a way to get coaching for him, you could try a program such as Dale Carnegie or the like.
Good luck!</p>