I am an international student and will apply for the university in the US. I am wondering whether color vision deficiency will deter admission into the college. What school policy regarding the student with color vision deficiency? Is there any restriction for those students to choose some majors, such as chemistry, biology and engineering?
Are you talking about what we refer to as “color blind”? This has no impact at all in admissions or major.
U.S. colleges do not discriminate on the basis of disabilities. They would not receive any federal funding if they did. They post nondiscrimination statements.
But you can ask your specific colleges of interest for their policies to be sure.
Anyway- how would they know about your disability? You are not required to disclose it.
I have checked the website of several universities and all the college mention that they do not discriminate on disabilities. But is color blindness considered a disability? I can choose to not disclose it when I submit the application. However, the school will know that later since many schools required the admitted new student to submit the health form and the color vision deficiency will be shown under the “eye”. Then, will the school rescind the offer?
No. Relax. The only places where that might come into play are the service academies.
This is NOT an issue. At all.
What you fear is illegal in the United States. There are laws that protect you. Every college accepting federal funds, which will include almost every college and certainly all the famous ones you’d ever want to come to the United States to attend, will not deny anyone access to their programs bsed on a disability and will work to accommodate people with disabilities. They will have statements like this one:
“X College Non-Discrimination Statement: In compliance with state and federal law, X College does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, ancestry, or military service.”
Erin’s dad is right that the military academies have certain physical standards and require applicants to pass a physical exam, but that is because they are preparing you to fight in a war, not just to learn. Regular colleges will not have this issue.
If you will require accommodations to succeed, you might call the office of disabilities at your college of interest to find out what it available. But discrimination is not a concern.
When you are admitted and decide where to attend, contact the disabilities office to find out about documenting your specific vision issues, and arranging accommodations. I get letters every semester that tell me which of my students need accommodations. For a color vision deficiency, the letter might ask that I use specific marker colors on the whiteboard, or that I be more careful when discussing colored images in a textbook or projected on a screen.
You also will need to advocate for yourself. That means that if you can’t see a color well, or can’t distinguish between two colors that your instructor is using to indicate specific information, you need to let your instructor know.
Not generally an issue, except in some aviation or military contexts.
Note that about 8% of men have color vision anomalies, so it is not like such a thing is rare.
College admissions is one thing, working in the field after graduating is another. From a practical standpoint, unless it’s your one true love and burning desire and you’ll be lost if you don’t do it… I’d avoid being an electrical engineer. There are just too many things that are color coded - wires, components, even specialty tools. It would be not just inconvenient, it would be impractical and maybe even dangerous to do a lot of electrical engineering work if you are color blind. And yes, before someone responds with the requisite lecture about the ADA, employers would have to give you reasonable accommodation. But if it’s mandated and what type of accommodation is mandated is dependent on the size of the business, how expensive the accommodation is and whether the task is a central requirement of the job; I suspect for many of the electrical engineering jobs, the ability to distinguish colors of wire or components is a critical and central requirement of the job for basic safety.
A relative was color blind and was rejected from ROTC per the above comments. Being unable to distinguish betweeen red and black, he would have been a lousy bomb defuser when picking what wire to cut. Otherwise he went into medicine and had a successful career. You will not have problems unless preparing for a career in which color differentiation is critical.
Thanks a lot! I am really appreciated for all the comments and suggestions.
I majored in electrical engineering and don’t actually do anything with wires and resistors…it is a good major for a technical background.
My physics teacher in high school said he wanted to do chemistry but couldn’t because he was color blind. I don’t think he wasn’t allowed to major in it, but he just decided it was too hard. I guess color is important for analyzing chemical reactions?
Color can matter for some chemical reactions and especially when titrating. But there are likely to be work-arounds available when a student or professional needs them.
I have several color blind chemist friends. All very successful professional scientists. While it helps to be able to see colors for chemistry to appreciate its beauty, we have instruments to tell us exactly what compound we made. Eyes aren’t quantitative, and chemistry is a quantitative science.
I am just mild color vision deficiency. I can see the different colors, and just can’t differentiate the quite similar colors. I even don’t know this until I got the health exam two years ago. In the exam, I was required to read the numbers on the pictures which contained dots with different colors. I can read some of the numbers correctly. But with a few pictures, my answer is different with the correct one. I am interested in the major of engineering, such as electrical engineering, computer engineering and mechanic engineering. I’ve been worried for a long time that I will be restricted to choose some majors, although I’ve never had a problem in performing the physical or chemical experiments in high school.
As others have said, they won’t even know and it wouldn’t matter if they did. I’ve known several color blind men and it didn’t keep them from working in science and engineering.