@Sealbrown, I have no experience with these schools but did the work helping two very bright kids with LDs apply to and choose colleges (and grad schools). You can’t tell anything about what services a DSO will provide by talking to them before your child is admitted. They will tell you the same pablum.
However, after your child is admitted, you can send them all of your child’s neuropsych test results and a list of the accommodations/support that have been helpful to him, including things support that you have provided. You can ask them generally what they support they would provide, but I found it much more helpful to say, “Here is what worked for my child. What support can you provide?” We then talked through what they could do.
Interestingly, one of the schools (an Ivy) said, “No problem. After your son accepts, we will evaluate your test results and send our recommended accommodations to a committee, which decides the appropriate accommodations.” My son can’t do foreign languages and the school has a foreign language requirement (well-documented by neuropsych and corroborated by experience). So I said, “That does not work for us. My son cannot attend your school if we do not know how you will accommodate him and specifically whether you will waive the language requirement.” He reluctantly agreed to review the test results and send his recommendation to the committee in time for us to make a decision. He told then requested raw scores from some test (I think but it has few years) that the neuropsychologist said gave him no additional information but we sent it. They did grant the waiver but he was grudging about accommodations that the two other schools we talked to said was no problem – and the school ShawSon attended even offered accommodations that we had not had in HS. The Ivy was my son’s top choice after its inspiring admitted students weekend, but after meeting the heads of the DSOs at the Ivy and the Number 2. Partway through the meeting with the DSO for Number 2, he leaned over to me and said, “The Ivy wins on style but Number 2 wins on substance.”
Incidentally, I later called a former client with whom I am friendly who as on the Board of Trustees of the Ivy. He was really annoyed that they had let an outstanding student go elsewhere because the DSO was grudging/inflexible. Not sure what happened there. (As it turns out, ShawSon is the kind of alum they would have wanted. He has been named to the 30 under 30 list by a major business publication.)
I believe that it was valuable to meet the heads of the DSO in person. We were not able to do that for ShawD but we did have an email exchange (maybe a call as well). Again, we let the person we talked to that ShawD could only attend the school, her first choice, if we knew what accommodations they would provide. But, we did not have the same ability to assess their flexibility that we had with ShawSon’s schools.
One other thought. Some things you may wish to supply on your own if the school does not. If executive function is an issue, we had hired someone for ShawSon in HS and had them stay on virtually for a year, maybe two, including having access to ShawSon’s email account to look at assignments as they were coming in/being modified. ShawD’s DSO office provided some help that addressed the EF concerns. But, we would have been happy to pay for external scaffolding if they did not offer the help.