Need assistance with college selection...

AnonyMom
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:28:24 +0000

My advice would be that once you find schools that seem right for your son academically in terms of the quality of civil engineering, whether or not he is required to take a bunch of gen ed requirements and in terms of the academic culture (nurturing versus weeding people out, sink or swim), talk directly with the office that supports students with LD’s and other challenges.

Think about what accommodations and support your son will need and see if they’ve got those services. Do you like his 504 and if so, will can they continue the plan? (Colleges may offer more than high schools can, particularly in terms of assistive technology, tutoring, and note-taking, none of which may be relevant in terms of your son’s plan, but good to think about.) Try to get an idea of whether they’re supporting other students with similar issues, and the range of things they’re doing for those students. Also try to get a sense for how proactive students have to be on an ongoing basis to get what they need. If your son needs extended time, or if he may need the flexibility to take a reduced load, or if he needs ongoing counseling and support around the social anxiety, will this be there for him? If a teacher or TA gives him a hard time about accommodations, will the support office run interference? Do you have to pay for any of the things you get from them? Can it be set up for him to have one go-to person who is familiar with his issues so he doesn’t have to connect with someone new and different every time he contacts the office? Will his contact person be a professional or a work-study student who answers the phone? (If you have trepidation about making calls like this, you can always start with a college that doesn’t particularly interest S, just to practice.)

Although your S is, of course, unique, college support offices have seen processing issues, ADD, OCD, and social anxiety before. A lot. They are there to support bright kids who despite these challenges have managed to succeed academically and want to continue to succeed in college. Many of them are large and well-staffed by a variety of professionals because they have a lot of kids to serve. The way you assess a school and whether it’s right for your son will be influenced by how you feel about the support they offer, and you might even want to cross some school or other off your list because the support office creeps you out, but you might end up as pleasantly surprised as I was.