Best Top Colleges for Student with Learning Disability

College Search & Lists
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My daughter is “twice exceptional” which means she has an IQ in the 98th percentile but she has learning disabilities including ADHD, dyslexia (mild), and dyscalculia. She’s a sophomore at a private International Baccalaureate school where she will receive an IB diploma. My daughter’s grades are excellent (all A’s) and she scored a 35 on the ACT. Her college resume will be strong and will showcase her hard work and passion for social justice and advocacy for disabled individuals.

My question is really about which colleges are more likely to embrace learning differences. She’s most interested in top 25 colleges. I’ve heard that Brown and Yale might be good choices. My daughter is a legacy at Princeton and Penn and I’d be interested to hear from anyone who might know how LD students fare at those schools. Ideally, I’d love to find a college with rigorous academics along and a warm, accepting culture.

Thanks so much in advance for any feedback!

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Well, if she were my child I’d expand her list of schools beyond “top 25.” Regardless of legacy, the schools you mentioned are reaches for everyone, although I heard from UPenn adcom that legacy there does increase your chances substantially. Brown I’m not sure. Frankly IMHO the top at least 50 or so schools have virtually the same level of faculty and student body as the Ivies. The Ivies are only so big. Those students and faculty need to go somewhere. Getting into one of the top 25 will not greatly influence her life–this is UNDERGRAD after all, not grad school. Grad schools while somewhat swayed by the signaling of a Top 25 or a Top 50, in general care more about what else you can bring to the grad program. Harvard Law accepts students from a extremely generous range of schools, for example. They publish the list online. Ph.D. programs pull from an even larger list, I suspect, but you can look at this from another angle and look up Ph.D. feeder schools if you’re interested. Schools that might surprise you appear on those lists, such as Earlham and Kalamazoo or St. Johns of Annapolis–a school which often doesn’t even fill each year (and I consider a hidden gem for the right student.)

With that in mind my first piece of advice would be: relax. There’s room in great schools and there’s no need to be anxious about Getting Into The Top School Now! Instead I’d choose by type of student body–the school community atmosphere and course offerings–rather than a random number in a ranking by some magazine. But that’s just me. My reasoning would be that if she’s comfortable she’ll flourish. College is stressful enough. Being twice exceptional adds more stress. Maybe reducing that stress level would be a good idea.

To do that my first consideration if she were my child (after how do I pay for this) would be how competitive the students are with each other. Reducing the competitiveness among the students will improve her life at college. She can still get an excellent education in student bodies that are kind to each other and cooperative. As she identifies as female, she may want to consider two colleges where the administration of the school works explicitly with the student body to create a cooperative, congenial atmosphere. Those schools are Mt. Holyoke and Bryn Mawr. In addition to top academics and kind atmospheres, both schools also offer–1) consortia where the student can cross register at a number of other great schools and free transportation to get the student to those schools; 2) the schools are gorgeous and have great facilities; 3) they have excellent financial aid; 4) the education is excellent. Mt. H you can take classes also at Smith, Hampshire, UMass Amherst, and Amherst. BMC you can take classes at Haverford, Swarthmore, UPenn. Another school that at least used to not be competitive among its students was Vassar. I’ve heard good things about Grinnell too, but haven’t confirmed them.

Schools that I would rule out for having overly competitive student bodies include UChicago; Johns Hopkins; Harvard; Swarthmore (but taking a class or two there might be fun); Wellesley and to some extent Smith; Harvey Mudd; MIT; Princeton

For engineering if she’s interested, I’d look at Olin for creating a cooperative rather than competitive atmosphere among its students.

Schools that are lower in the rankings but still offer nice educations and nice atmospheres include IMHO: Earlham; Muhlenberg; Simmons; Agnes Scott; Mills; Wheaton in Massachusetts; Connecticut College; Kalamazoo; St. Olaf (very nice school); Hendrix; Hampshire; Beloit, Knox

If you can afford it and aren’t so interested in FA, you may want to consider Columbia GS. (Penn also has a similar program.) GS has the least restrictive gap requirements (as little as 6 months) for entry into the program. Here’s why it might work for you. 1) it is the exact same education as Columbia college. 2) the pressure is reduced for your child because she would be able to reduce the number of classes she takes. There’s no minimum at GS; 3) prestige: it’s the exact same education as CU college and employers and grad schools treat GS students the same as CU college grads. Be aware, though, that the housing for GS students is not guaranteed. You should assume that you’d need to locate housing on your own. Barnard is another CU undergrad college she should consider as Barnard doesn’t include the core, which depending on your child may or may not be a cause of stress.

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OP can you explain further what you mean by “which colleges are more likely to embrace learning differences.” All colleges will have some sort of Disability Office that will assist your student in obtaining whatever accommodations she qualifies for. My D19 has ADHD, mild dyslexia and some dyscalculia. She also got a 35 ACT after testing with accommodations although her GPA is less stellar. The most important accommodations she needs are (1) audio accommodations to assist with her reading difficulties, (2) additional time for testing, and (3) sometimes a less distracting setting for testing. I have been checking with disability offices at a number of schools including my in state public universities and several of the CTCL colleges and found that they all provide those accommodations. They also all seem to have some type of assistive learning technology available such as Kurzweil 3000. They all seem to be able to convert textbooks to an audio format if needed. It sounds though that you are also looking for schools where the student body is more collaborative and less competitive. I agree with what Dustyfeathers has said above.

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I agree with the above comments. I would also suggest avoiding schools with competitive vibes. Would she be happy at a smaller school, an LAC. Schools will in general work with students with learning disabilities. Schools with smaller classes might also be helpful. Would she consider all-female schools, like Smith and Mount Holyoke? Those two along with Amherst are in the five college consortium. I’m not not sure if these would be great fits, but maybe something like that would be something to consider. Some LACs that have really impressed me include Bates and Bowdoin, Dickinson and Connecticut College, Kenyon and Rhodes (in Memphis). What about Sewanee, on a mountaintop with nature all around. I have a child with similar challenges (and twice exceptional), and nature can be really therapeutic, at least in our case in a shocking way.

Brown might be great, and maybe the others you mention. Pursue those. And, speaking from experience, fit is overwhelmingly more important than ranking for twice exceptional kids. Both in terms of Top 25 schools being insanely competitive for all students, dramatically more so than even a decade ago, and including a large number with very competitive cultures, I’d advise expanding your search.

I like to cite these numbers regarding the first point. We were told at one of these schools that 70% of applicants are fully qualified, and the school was confident that they would succeed academically and otherwise. I think that’s probably a reasonable number if you think about a Harvard, Yale, etc. It certainly appears your D would be a fully qualified applicant. If a school accepts 7%, then 9 in 10 applicants it deems fully qualified are denied admission. A few of them accept under 5%.

So, two reasons for the advice to broaden the search–those numbers and the point to think about fit over ranking, at least to some extent. Good luck and have fun with the process!

5

Thank you all for taking the time to reply to my post. I very much appreciate it. We definitely plan to broaden the search and top 25 schools would all be reach schools given intensely competitive admissions. I checked out some of the colleges suggested and added a few to our list. I agree the environment and culture of the school is more important than the name brand.

While all colleges offer accommodation because it’s required, some colleges have a culture that is less accepting of learning differences or “invisible” disabilities. A former LD student wrote an article about her experience at Princeton where she found professors and classmates were often skeptical when accommodation was requested. In comparison, Brown recently hosted a seminar with the title, “Why Brown University’s Commitment to Diversity Must Include a Commitment to Disability.” Brown also has significantly more information about learning resources on its student service page than the perfunctory information posted by many colleges. This leads me to believe that Brown has a more accepting culture but I have no evidence of that. The last thing I’d want is for the college experience to erode my daughter’s self-esteem.
I agree that an intensely competitive culture could be detrimental to her, and above all, we’d like to find the right fit.

Many thanks again for your input!

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My DS2 has asperger’s and is very capable academically. He is a junior at Wesleyan which has been absolutely fantastic. My general advice for kids with special needs is stick to small colleges aka LACs to get small class sizes and great advising but some medium sized universities like Princeton, Brown, Tufts, Dartmouth etc that focus on undergrads would also be fine.

According to Fiske, the top colleges with strong support for students with learning disabilities are:
American University
University of Arizona
Bard College
Beacon College
Clark University
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Connecticut
Curry College
University of Denver
DePaul University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
University of Georgia
Hofstra University
Landmark College
Lesley University
Loras College
Lynn University
Manhattanville College
Marist College
Marymount Manhattan College
Mercyhurst College
Mitchell College
Muskingum College
New England College
University of New England
Northeastern University
Purdue University
Rochester Institute of Technology
St. Thomas Aquinas College (NY)
Syracuse University
University of Vermont
West Virginia Wesleyan University
Westminster College (MO)

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@Dustyfeathers My 2E kid was successful at Harvey Mudd. It depends on the kid. It is a fiercely difficult school, but not fiercely competitive — those are two different things.

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Perhaps apples and oranges, but a local friend whose kid is 2e (autism spectrum rather than adhd/ dyslexia) was super impressed with U Connecticut and kid agreed. He’ll be starting there this fall.

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Great advice. Congrats on having such a successful student and overcoming the issues. I agree wholeheartedly with the smaller is better theme. Less noise and distractions. More direct contact with profs and staff who know you specifically

Brown is often viewed as the chilled out ivy. Pass fail options and very liberal/interdisciplinary class selection. But the students there are just as focused and competitive as any elite school. The top 50 schools all share the most accomplished bright and hardworking students in the country.

LACs and small Catholics are worthy of review