<p>whenhen – thank you! What a great list of schools! He definitely would prefer being in the south so this is terrific. Will definitely check them out – I know D had competed against Berry in track – I wasn’t familiar with it before. Good to know.</p>
<p>College selectivity has changed so much in recent years that I wonder if I would get into the college I went to if I applied today. I try to keep this in mind when well meaning, but not recently informed, people make comments or suggestions about schools. Many colleges have changed quite a bit, and thankfully there are many good opportunities out there.
I’m not familiar with Oglethorpe University, but I have heard of it and it is in Atlanta, if having two kids near each other makes a difference. You have some nice choices so far.</p>
<p>Welcome Class of 2015! This brought back memories:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was S1 - a rush to submit apps after his 12/15 deferral from his ED school. Fun times! But it is funny how quickly time goes by. S1 loved his time at his second choice university, graduated in May, and has a full-time job lined up - he starts Monday. So, you do get through it.</p>
<p>Your son should absolutely try the ACT again, and check out the website Fairtest.org for a list of test optional schools.</p>
<p>Classof2015 - add McDaniel College in Maryland to your list - great college for students with learning issues.</p>
<p>justamom - the regional reps each have a territory and should be fairly familiar with both the public and private hs in that assigned area. Of course, the area might be an entire state, so I’m not sure they would know every nuance. Every high school also has a school profile that they send out with transcripts, that describes the hs and helps to put students in context. If you have never sen your hs profile - ask to see it. Many have it in their website. It gives basic info like the number of students and the classes offered, but also stats on GPA distribution and test score distribution. This is where a college would look to see how many AP or honors classes a particular hs offers. Sometimes students are concerned that they have taken few AP classes, but if the profile shows their hs only offers 3 AP classes, then it would not be held against them.</p>
<p>The profile also shows how one student compares to the entire class. For example, at HS A, a 28 ACT would put the student in the top 5%, while at HS B, the same score would put the student at the 40th percentile. The school profile shows how that student compares to his classmates in terms of GPA and test scores.</p>
<p>Hi classof2015,
My son is going to Goucher in August and its support services were definitely a factor. It is test optional but you should know that you need to submit scores for merit scholarship consideration, if that is something you would want.</p>
<p>I have heard good things about American too but we didn’t look there (1 hr further was just too far). I’ve also heard good things about Hartwick, like Goucher very small and supportive. You might want to use the college board search engine (or Naviance if you have it) to pick colleges that meet his needs (size, distance, program, cost) and then phone academic support at each contender to get a vibe. I found that enormously helpful and will save a trip to the school if you don’t think that they have good supports for your student.</p>
<p>rockvillemom- thanks for the tip about McDaniel! I’ve also checked out the fairtest site and fortunately many of his schools are on it.</p>
<p>shulamit – I will definitely look into Goucher and Hartwick. I have been on college board but more to search one school at a time. Can you “filter” by LD-support? I’ll try it. And yes – we use Naviance, which has been helpful (though depressing). Good tip also to call the school and ask.</p>
<p>College bd has a box you can tick for Support services, but it’s too indiscriminate. You are better off not using it as a filter and going to each college’s website for details.</p>
<p>Hahahaha… Rockvillemom… I went on the school website and after a quick digging found one from 2007!!!</p>
<p>Classof2015, welcome to our thread! My son had a 2.82 GPA and a 26 ACT when he submitted his apps last fall (brought his GPA up to 3.0 after fall grades). He was accepted with merit money to Goucher, Eckerd, Ursinus, Hofstra, Puget Sound, Ohio Wesleyan, Marlboro, and Wheaton in MA (where he will be attending). He was also accepted (without $) to University of Denver and Adelphi. He was waitlisted at Wooster and Muhlenberg. All these schools are known for good academic/LD support.</p>
<p>justamom - too funny. Ask the GC or principal for a more recent copy. There’s no reason parents shouldn’t be able to see the school profile. I never knew the document existed until working on S2’s process, and I found it interesting. For example, our hs does not rank, but the profile identifes the GPA range for the top 10%, top 20% and so on, which was new information.</p>
<p>pkd0f13 – thanks for the welcome! Boy, you guys are a friendly bunch! Makes this whole process easier. </p>
<p>I appreciate the list – that gives me a real-world sense of where he could get in. Our Naviance shows some schools, but doesn’t have data for all of them. I’ll check out Wheaton in MA – I only knew of the other Wheaton which is not our thing. Good luck to your son!</p>
<p>Class of 2015, I have two kids with LDs, one severe and one less severe (the B student who became an A- student in her last couple of years of HS). In both cases, we found that visiting the school’s disability offices while deciding whether to apply was not that useful as they all give lip service, even if you have sent them all of the neuropsychological testing (which I did). But, they won’t commit to what they will do. After they admit your child, you can visit again (or for the first time) and ask, based upon the neuropsychological testing and what the ACT/SAT has done for the kid and maybe the 504, for specific commitments about what they will do (extra time on tests, reader, scribe, testing in separate room, waive language requirements, etc.). At that point, some will tell you and some will say, “After your child accepts, we will send this form off to a committee and they will decide.” I had to say, he can’t decide unless we know. With the kid with the more severe LDs who was an A/A+ student, he actually turned down his first choice (an Ivy) for a high-end LAC because of the difficulty of getting the Ivy to answer. They did respond but it was a bit like pulling teeth and he decided that the first school, which said, “Tell us what you need to be successful and we’ll do that for you” was the place to attend.</p>
<p>Both of my kids did pretty well on the SAT/ACTs with accommodations (SAT for son took a long time with appeals to get and ACT for D was similarly difficult). They used what was called the Xiggi method, after a poster on this site, which involves taking many actual SAT or ACT tests, looking at the errors, figuring out what the issues were and addressing them, and then taking more actual tests.</p>
<p>
I certainly would not be admitted today to the University of Toronto
with the grades I had back in the day. :)</p>
<p>
Fair enough. On the other hand, at one school we visited, it was evident that
accessing the services was going to be, at best, procedurally difficult. </p>
<p>If an individual has an organizational deficit, but that individual must be
well-organized to avail themselves of the support services, well …
fuhgeddaboudit.</p>
<p>Expatcanuck, we only found that getting the desired accommodations would be at best procedurally difficult AFTER ShawSon was admitted. Before, we got lip service. “We do our own evaluation” (all schools do) “but work to provide the students with the accommodations that are appropriate to their disabilities.” We probably could have asked some follow-up questions that would have given us a better picture up front, but the school is competing for applicants to keep its selectivity up (it wants to maximize the number of applicants relative to the number it admits) and so folks generally not going to tell you what you need to know up front if that is going to discourage applicants. There will be exceptions, but I think you will learn a lot more after being admitted than before.</p>
<p>Classof2015, Oxford College of Emory looked good on paper. Small residential campus with a strong orientation to building academic skills before doing junior and senior years at Emory. I don’t recall the stats but I remember thinking it was doable for ShawD.</p>
<p>
Agreed. I’m simply suggesting that visits can still be useful for weeding schools out earlier still. But, yeah, the proof is in the pudding.</p>
<p>I have a son with learning disabilities who receives and uses accommodations in his day to day schooling, including extended time for testing and copies of notes. </p>
<p>We recently visited Auburn U and had a terrific visit with the Student Support office. The gentleman who runs it is clear that my son will get his accommodations. Also, in the decade plus he has been there he has only had to speak to three professors about not granting accommodations. At any given time there are about 1000 students on campus receiving accommodations.</p>
<p>Of course, AU doesn’t have a very large Jewish population. Actually, it is pretty small, but the University has made it a priority to grow this population. Alabama had the same priority for a decade or so and I think has seen much success. We will see what happens at AU.</p>
<p>Classof2015…in a similar boat. S1 was a high achiever, while S2, also a rising senior, has had a much tougher time in school. LDs in a competitive private high school and finally got his gpa up to a 2.75 this year (getting over a 3.0 for the first time in high school…at least it shows an upward trend). 26 on his ACT (27 if it’s super scored). We’re midwest and he wants to go far enough away from home where he won’t be coming home on the weekends, but close enough so that he can get home easily if he needs to. Although I think a smaller school would be better for him, he wants a larger, less intense environment than the high school he’s struggled through. </p>
<p>He’s pretty much narrowed his choices down to Grand Valley State University, Western Michigan and Bowling Green. He should get into at least 2 of the 3 and have some choices, but he’s just tired of the whole process, found schools he likes, and doesn’t want to think about it anymore. Not high jewish populations at any of them, and unfortunately, I think he liked Bowling Green the best, and that has the smallest jewish population.</p>
<p>Still would like to hear from anyone w/ any experience w/ jewish life at Bowling Green.</p>
<p>pdkof13…so encouraging to hear of your student’s successes w/ similar stats.</p>
<p>shawbridge – thanks for the info – I remember you from our HS Class of 2011 thread. I wish S had done that well on ACT with accomodations. D (HS class of 2011) was accepted at Oxford; ended up at Emory. I don’t think S would get in or be able to handle the work – they say Oxford is tougher than Emory.</p>
<p>umich8790 – thanks – our sons sound so similar. S doesn’t want to look at any more schools, and I am convinced that being in an intense public school has just made him feel dumb. He is only interested in applying to big state schools (where I think he would flounder and fail).</p>
<p>I think he would benefit from a small LAC environment, where they notice if you show up for class. I really want him to be in a place where he is challenged, but he feels he can do the work. </p>
<p>This whole college process is so fraught with emotion and fear and stress. I keep going back over how I raised him vs his sister to see if there was anything I did differently (or did wrong). H thinks S is not academic because I got him XBox early on. That’s it. I should be shunned.</p>
<p>I just heard from a cousin. He got a late admit to Arizona State,( 2.9 GPA, 25 ACT-Out of state). Also if he makes good, he can apply to the honors college next year.</p>