<p>I thought it would be useful for people to share impressions of disability offices obtained during college visits, either before or after you've been accepted. My d (ADHD, mild AS) will disclose, so we have begun scheduling interviews with someone from the disability office when we visit prior to applying.</p>
<p>Our first visit was at Lesley University (d is applying to Art Institute of Boston, affiliated with Lesley). The office blew me away and will serve as a gold standard for future visits. Attitude is "whatever you need to be successful, we can and will provide." Coaching several times a week, coaching for individual assignments, test taking with extra time in small room, spreadsheeting all of a semester's assignments, you name it. No extra fee, BTW. It was incredible...</p>
<p>Took my NLD grandson to College of Mt. St. Joseph in Cincinnati in June. Excel Program offers all the supports you mentioned. Our tour guide was a student in the Excel program and gave excellent info on what it is really like. Very impressive program. An extra fee is charged for the Excel program. The college has about 2,000 students. Cincinnati is a lovely city. My grandson intends to apply this fall.</p>
<p>You should first narrow down your choices to colleges that have the programs your child is interested in. Then call each college’s dis office. You will quickly get a sense of whether they will be welcoming to your child, or don’t want to add another ld kid to their list. Had good experiences at SUNY New Paltz, U Hartford, Ithaca, Emerson. Bad at Union, Bennington, Sarah Lawrence.</p>
<p>Parent here. I heard a nice little spiel from the university my D chose, but the bottom line was that the STUDENT has to ask for help. If they don’t ask for it, they’ll be left in the dust, which is exactly what happened to my D. If you can find a college that tracks a students grades/attendance and requires meetings with the student, you may be more successful that we were.</p>
<p>…and isn’t that always the challenge with our kids with executive function deficits. Self advocacy is one of those skills that are underdeveloped! We are working intensively on these skills this year (and if they don’t advance enough she will defer admission to do some sort of gap year program). And even then we’ll cross our fingers once she’s off to college.</p>