pmrlcomm

My son is very bright (34 ACT, 2010 SAT, 233 PSAT no prep). All that being said he suffers from a combination of ADD, OCD and social anxiety. He ec's are ok but not great. GPA is about 3.5 weighted, not sure unweighted. Will have 3 or 4 ap's. Interested in civil engineering perhaps. He gets the information, just has a problem either regurgitating it or doing it fast enough. Had a full educational evaluation done, currently has a 504 plan. Basically according to the evaluation there is a processing issue and it stops him from the quick recall that most have. He's not slow...just not fast. We are in Ohio and are on the low end of the financial scale. Currently looking at Case Western, Vandy, WashU. and Rose-Hulman. Any thoughts on schools or anything else? Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

shawbridge

I'm not an expert yet and will likely never be but we're starting our work on this also, though we won't be looking at engineering schools and probably not much in the Midwest for our son. But, there are a few questions:

Do you think he would fit in bettter at a big school or a small one? There are good Midwestern state schools (e.g., Michigan and Illinois) but they are huge. I don't know Ohio State's quality, just its size. Would the social anxiety be lessened at a smaller school? If small is what is important, I have known several kids who went to Kenyon (to pick a school in Ohio) and were very happy with their educations. At the extreme, Hampshire College has no requirements or curricula but I have met some very well-directed, well-trained graduates of Hampshire (they are Birkenstocky kind of folk who are now professors -- the one I still track is at Penn).

If engineering/science is a strong interest, there's also RPI and Harvey Mudd, which I think are on the small side. Carnegie-Mellon is a terrific school as is Rice.

I would spend time speculating about the kinds of support your son will need in a non-home environment, researching the schools to see if they are good, bad or indifferent with those kinds of support. Start on the web, then during the visit, meet the head of the DSS or equivalent of SpEd office to get a feel for what they do. See if your son is comfortable with them. Clark in Worcester, MA is a very good science/engineering school that does very well with kids with LDs. They were the first school in the US to have an office of Disability Services.

pmrlcomm

Thanks Shaw!

foolishpleasure

I thought the top engineering programs tended to be unis - - MIT, Caltech, etc. - - and that LACs with strong engineering prgms (Harvey Mudd) are less common. Also at a LAC one often receives a BS instead of a BE (bach in engineering, the first professional degree in engineering).

And because the uni engineering curric is often more focused/limited/specialized than at a LAC, it can be easier to avoid some of the humanities or soc sci courses that LACs require to satisfy geneds. A friend's son (w/ similar profile to your S) chose UMich engineer for precisely that reason (doesn't have to take a lot of classes outside of engineering, math and sci).

If your S's skill set is more evenly developed and geneds are not a problem, you might want to consider some smaller unis in addit to the "usual suspects." In addition to Clark, Case (offers merit $), URocn (very supportive), Union, Trinity, Lehigh and Tufts are all small unis offering engineering. Sorry, other than Case, no small mid-western uni came to mind.

pmrlcomm

Thanks for the input.

al6200

For small teaching-oriented engineering schools, consider Rose Hulman.

I'm going to WPI this fall. Small school, but still (somewhat) grad/research oriented.

NeuroPhD

You're in Ohio and mentioned financial concerns. The Honors College at the University of Cincinnati is worth a look. It is a small program and the students get excellent mentoring from the faculty.