Very Intelligent High Scoring/High Grades Special Education Students

Applying to College
1

Hello,

My son is a special education student who will be graduating in June 2020. He currently has an unweighted 3.925 GPA. He does well on standardized tests and I suspect that he will do well on the SATs. He typically scores in the 95-99% on standardized tests. We have been down this rodeo once before with our other son and know that we need to get the right tutors, the right prep, etc. My question is as follows:

His school is on a trimester system. Each trimester, instead of one regular class, our has a learning resource class where he is assisted with organizational skills, problems with fine motor skills (he is on less than the first percentile), social anxiety, ADHD, etc. This means that he is taking one fewer class than kids at his school (this would be instead of electives) each trimester, for a total of 12 fewer electives before he graduates as a senior.

I have been told by the high school counselors that this will not impact my son’s ability to get into any school he wants, but I was wondering if anyone else has any insight into this issue, either from personal experience, by knowing admissions people, etc. My son is not the typical cookie cutter type kid–he is a self-disclosed nerd, who volunteers as a senior citizen home, is a program assistant at a computer camp held at a college campus over the summer, and participates in the arcade club (non-electronics game club) at school.

He would really like to attend the large, highly-selective public university where my husband and I attended college, but being admitted there now is almost as difficult as being admitted to an ivy league college. I suspect that, depending on how he scores, he may even have some better options, except I don’t know how this “LRC” class will look to the admissions officers.

Any thoughts? Suggestions on how to present things in the application, etc.?

2

That sound like a BASIS school; I currently attend a school with this grading system and my counselor advised me to fill activities and achieve high scores.Your GPA , as long as it is around 4.0 (like your son’s) should be fine. Colleges look at other activities as well, so do not over stress

3

First, it depends whether admissions to this public U is holistic or primarily stats based. After that, have you considered the level and sort of support he’d need while in college? The goal, I’d think, isn’t just to get him to college, but to have him where he can personally thrive (academically and socially.)

The ECs (vol and the camp) are good, he sounds like a nice kid. But they may not be enough. (Don’t forget, other sorts of activities can count.) The answer will be specific to your alma mater and I wonder if you considered speaking with them. Many top colleges will admit a bright, high performing non-traditional type, when they feel his overall skill set will work for him in their environment. Many on CC advocate speaking first with the learning support staff.