Are US Admissions Offices Disability-Aware?

Applying to College
1

Hi,

I’m a 39-year old non-traditional student who completed secondary school in Austria, Europe, in 1995 and a one-year foundation programme at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, in 2012, which reviewed the chemistry, maths, and physics contents of the British secondary school system, called A-Levels, in all depth and breadth, which I would consider equivalent to US High School AP courses.

Last November, I applied to Amherst College as a transfer student for their January 2015 entry and was rejected with the standard explanation that there had been too many - 90 - applicants for only 10 places.

One reason may have been that as a European secondary school graduate I had not participated in many extracurricular activities (attending extracurricular activities in Europe has NO real tradition), another one that I had not sat any standardized admissions tests because Amherst did not require any and it was the only college which I applied to.

Nonetheless, I wonder whether my frank talking about my mental health issue may also have negatively affected my admissions chances. I explained Amherst’s transfer admissions dean that I suffered from a chronic mood and anxiety disorder and would need to carry a so called medical underload, i.e. that I would have to attend three instead of the normal four courses per term, and, as a consequence, to take five instead of four years to complete the bachelors program. She kindly assured me Amherst would be highly likely to be capable of accommodating these requests, should I be admitted.

Now, I am applying to 21 colleges as a regular first year student for September 2016 and I wonder whether I had better NOT mention my disability again during interviews or in the application essays. In Austria, there is no need to be ashamed of being disabled and one can talk openly about it. However, friends have warned me not to mention it when applying to a college in the US, because psychiatric disabilities may be viewed as irritating.

What would be your advice, please? May I talk openly about it or not?

What if a college’s interviewer asks me why I withdrew from university in the UK, took three years off and want to resume my studies in the US now? The truth is that I withdrew due to my deteriorating health, needed that break to recover and cannot return to Britain, since they do not permit their students to reduce their course load due to health issues. Universities in the US, however, do so, as they seem to be much more flexible. This is what has motivated me to apply to US institutions now.

Should you kindly like to help me, I would be very grateful indeed, mates!

Julian
GPA 4.0 - ACT Score 35

2

All schools are disability aware in the US by law.
What you need to do is contact the disabled student services offices at each school you hope to apply to. Some of the Disabled Student Services offices take your application directly.

Before you apply to 21 schools, find out how much these universities are going to cost you. Some won’t offer any financial aid to non-US students.

3

Hi Aunt Bea,

Thank you for your advice. This is great.

I will contact the disab student services offices directly, and I will research their fin aid for int students in more details. Collegeboard Big Future and a handbook for Int Applicants listed these colleges as offering fin aid to int appl, but I will need to find out how much of tuition fees and living maintenance the scholarships actually cover.

A big thank you!

4

I don’t see revealing this as beneficial to your admission chances.

5

The large gap in your education will be obvious when someone reviews your transcript. You might want to briefly mention having a ‘medical’ issue in one of your essays without going into too much detail. This way the Adcom will know you have some issues but they don’t need to know all the details. They might give you a break because of it.

However being up front and acknowledging psychiatric illness is a risky strategy. There have been many high profile cases of college students with psychiatric illness causing mass shootings in the US. Because of this, many Adcoms are a bit skittish.

As @auntbea states there are only a handful of schools which are need-blind to internationals. Most schools will only take top tier international students.

Because of your non-traditional status you might also consider Columbia School of General Studies. This is a school within Columbia university that offers degrees for non-traditional students.

6

Do NOT reveal any mental illness to colleges until AFTER you are admitted. Shape your application and essays to project the image of someone completely emotionally and socially healthy. The anti-MI bias is real and your apps will be marginalized if you reveal this disability. Instead reframe your time off from schooling and your desire to study in the US as having nothing to do with a mood disorder. Seriously. This comes straight from adcoms, albeit in softer language.

There’s also Harvard University’s extension school. It’s not Harvard College, but you might want to look into it as an alternative route to your BA.

7

I’m with dyiu13. Keep it zipped until you need accommodations. I am 46 and finally back in college after 15+ years away, and finding a college that “accepted” Traumatic Brain Injury was hard. I found I should have kept my mouth shut. One school even wanted copies of my medical records. Uh, no way Jose’. Many schools will claim to be accommodating for illness, impairments or disabilities when they really aren’t. And as I found out, the US Dept. of Education doesn’t care.