<p>Short of wearing a sign around one’s neck saying “handle with care” the OP will encounter people all through life and will be advised much throughout life in work and out of work by coworkers and friends. People post on threads to vent but also to get advice. If it’s a fruitless exercise for this student than perhaps others will learn from some of the advice given on this thread.</p>
<p>MommaJ’s alternative would be to tell the OP “So sorry for you. Good luck with that.” You can’t take it easy on the OP and also offer some useful advice.</p>
<p>No, my alternative would be to not berate him for his “yeah, buts”, tell him to “man up” , etc. My alternative would be to give him the facts in as simple and gentle a manner as possible, ignore the “yeah buts”, tell him you’re sorry he’s finding this so difficult, wish him well, and step away. I suspect none of those taking umbrage at the OP’s posts have ever dealt with a kid on the spectrum. Hopefully the OP will find himself at a school with robust disability services for Aspergers students so he can enjoy success and happiness in college and after.</p>
<p>The OP mentioned that he (or she?) does have some sort of treatment or therapy, so perhaps it’s best for him to work out a further plan of action with the professionals in his life. His parents might also be able to suggest how he should move on from here.</p>
<p>I think he since he mentioned the draft (despite the fact that no one has been drafted in nearly 40 years), and it’s unlikely that the autistic are relegated to foxholes anyway.</p>
<p>Having autism means that the person, by definition, will have a harder time navigating their way through the world than we neurotypicals. Autistic individuals are often very literal minded and inflexible in their thinking – so while a problem may seem simple to others ("If not Plan A, Plan B ") – the shift from Plan A to Plan B may seem insurmountable to an autistic person.</p>
<p>I think part of the problem is the amount of thought and preparation that needed to occur to even get to Plan A. In order to get to Plan A, the autistic individual has to think through all sorts of requirements and contingencies — lets say 20 separate items. If you shift to Plan B, what about the 20 things you have in place? Do some of them still apply, or do you have to start from scratch? Which of those 20 things applies? What else do you have to do?</p>
<p>So an autistic person may have an elaborate internal framework made up of thoughts like “I CAN do ____ because __<strong><em>” and “I CAN NOT do </em></strong> because _____”. That sort of thinking may be the only way the person was able to function at all in early childhood, memorizing a very detailed lists of DO’s and DON’Ts. (Autistic people tend to be very good at following rules, not so good at figuring out if and when it’s ok to bend the rules)</p>
<p>Now as the OP said, all autistic people are different, so we can’t generalize – but I think its unfair to criticize a person who has disclosed that he has autism for being inflexible in his thinking. (It’s like yelling at a person you know is deaf – it’s not fair and it won’t help). </p>
<p>Rather, I think it makes more sense to offer suggestions that will help guide the person to being able to develop alternative plans. I realize that it is extremely frustrating when we do offer up something like that, and the OP responds b with, “I CAN NOT do _____ because _____”. It seems like hostility and resistance, since we take many things (like arranging a carpool) to be very easy to accomplish. But for a person with autism, the series of steps needed to achieve “carpool” might seem incomprehensible and daunting.
So it might be more productive to recognize that in the OP’s eyes, our suggestions really can seem ridiculously impossible – and we will need to help address all of the barriers the OP sees or believes to exist before we can get to the next step, in a somewhat more respectful and sympathetic manner.</p>
<p>Calmom…Wow! Nicely said!</p>
<p>As noted above, a little sensitivity and tolerance can go a long way.</p>
<p>In any case, the reason why colleges don’t give extra financial help to kids with deadbeat parents is that it would encourage many more parents to become deadbeats.</p>
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<p>Agreed, but this sounds like far more than can be accomplished in this type of forum. Even on the Parents or Learning Differences forums, which is really where the OP’s issues would be best addressed, I don’t think that a poster needing this level of help would be able to find that level of response. </p>
<p>For the FA piece, the issue was the NCP waiver, and there is really only one plan there: fill it out in a factual and unemotional a way as possible. Posters have explained why that’s important, and why the OP shouldn’t take it personally. The OP might benefit from having someone sit down with him and help him fill out the waiver form and proofread it for tone. His parents and therapist or a school counselor would be the best choice for that task.</p>
<p>^^Yes but this is a student who is heading off to college. It’s a student that will have to navigate, migrate, negotiate, compromise and communicate with all kinds of people for years to come. Let us hope that it is not necessary to have someone sit down and explain each and every comment and opinion or constructive criticism that comes this student’s way during the college years. No one was harsh or gave non-constructive advice and information on this thread.</p>
<p>OP- I understand that you don’t want to go to (or think you can’t go to) a CC, but I think it might be very helpful. I, too, have Asperger’s and I know that it affects each person differently. I’ve never had issues with standardized testing, but I did have some difficulty in adjusting to dorm rooms and such. I have a mild form of Asperger’s and it sounds like yours might be fairly severe. I think you should go to a CC in order to help with the adjustment to college. There is no use is going to an expensive university if you’re just going to bomb out because you can’t test. </p>
<p>As I said, I really think you should consider some sort of CC option. I think it will be a good bridge between high school and university.</p>
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<p>Even if it didn’t, most colleges really can’t afford to help everyone who applies, even if they weren’t concerned about fraud or cheating. It’s not like Financial Aid offices have an unlimited reservoir of money to tap, in most cases. The reason they’re so stringent isn’t out of cruelty or callousness; it’s because they have limited funds and have to use it in the way that helps the most people. Sometimes it’s very unfair but that’s because humans are flawed and cannot account for every possible situation.</p>
<p>Wow, talk about harsh… </p>
<p>My kid has a lot of issues, some are on the executive functioning train, and she disclosed when she applied to college. The one she chose eventually had a lot of services which <em>helped</em> her learn to navigate the system, to manage her time, and she has a very good advisor as well. People who need help aren’t always thrown to the wolves, as some here obviously would like to see. </p>
<p>I know kids with No labels who can’t navigate anything, they are always at my house, lol. So, why should you expect a *spectrum kid to know how to deal with navigation, communications, etc. etc., Momof3boys? Once that kid is taught, you can bet he will never forget. And you do have to teach these kids pretty much everything socially. Don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh, he thinks the social skills only have to do with parties. FYI: Just because OP can’t wing it doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to be in the same colleges as your 3 boys. Then again, Bill Gates quit school, maybe OP should find the same track.</p>
<p>Just because the OP may not get into a state school doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be able to do well at a private. As for the deadbeat dad, I have never yet heard of anyone being encouraged to become a deadbeat to avoid college payments. How ridiculous. They are deadbeats to the core, from the get-go. Besides, if the guy is as poor as OP says, he probably has no clue about colleges these days, let alone the intricacies of FA. I would think he’d rather *have the money to pay for his kid’s schooling and not be so poor, period. *Become a deadbeat? I can’t roll my eyes high enough.</p>
<p>MommaJ, I bet you the OP doesn’t even know what “man up” means. Idioms are not the strong point of someone on the autism spectrum, for those who don’t know. It might not be such a dumb idea for people who have made those statements here to learn a bit. It’s only a matter of time before someone in your family is in the same situation. </p>
<p>Calmom, if you aren’t already, you should have been a teacher. I know enough teachers who don’t understand the steps involved when you teach (rather than teach *at, or tell them what to do - that’s not teaching). It’s bad enough to have to stomach educating people about this stuff in real life, who wants to do it here? Where there is little to no sense, let alone sensitivity? Thumbs up to you.</p>
<p>Going back into my cave, this place really is just unbelievable.</p>
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No, I have the unfortunate combination of being able to realize and understand all the steps, but without the patience to actually take someone through them at their pace. I actually can get exasperated pretty quickly in a face to face situation, when the other person is having difficulty catching on – I’ve had my moments because I did volunteer at my kids’ elementary school – but I don’t think I’d last a whole day.</p>
<p>This thread provides a good reason never to be a sperm donor.</p>
<p>I would just like to add to this thread that I was the one to fill out the request for a NCP waiver at the 2 schools my daughter applied to - my daughter had nothing to do with the process. The reason was that my daughter has not had any contact with her father for over 10 years and certainly didn’t know any information about him to give to the colleges. </p>
<p>I contacted each admission office and informed them that I needed a waiver and asked if there was a form to fill out or if I could just send in a letter. In the case of both schools who asked for a NCP form, they accepted my letter with the details of my ex-husband and our contact (or lack thereof) with him, and while I offered to give them contact information for others who could verify my story I was not asked for it and both times my request was approved.</p>
<p>Just as the parent is required to fill out the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, I believe that a waiver request for the NCP form can come from a parent and not the student. I do not believe that this will affect the students ability to be independant in the future. </p>
<p>Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>This thread provides a good reason never to be a sperm donor.</p>
<p>Maybe I misunderstood, but I didn’t get the feeling that the father was a “real sperm donor.” I got the feeling that the term was being used to describe someone who just accidentally got a woman pregnant, but had no intention of being a father to the resulting child. </p>
<p>If this was a legit sperm donor situation, I don’t think the donor is obligated in any way. But, maybe I misunderstood.</p>
<p>Yaba I have no idea how you read what you read into my post or if you are agreeing or disagreeing. But yes, to a certain degree the types of skills (communicating, negotiating etc.) we are advising are valuable in all aspects of life and yes to a certain degree the advice offered by others as well of me could be categorized as “teaching.”</p>
<p>calmom, just piping up to say that your post 66 said everything I was getting at in my posts 57 and 60, but about 1000 times more eloquently. There are high achieving, highly capable, neuro-typical parents on this board with have high achieving, highly capable, neuro-typical kids, and some of them can’t begin to relate to those in other circumstances. They are well intentioned, but they need to take a big step back when they see that they’re in unfamiliar territory.</p>
<p>I don’t think the OP is following this thread anymore but didn’t seem overly upset after kelsmom told him/her to “man up”. I suggest you all might want to reread the first paragraph in that post…she DOES have experience with kids on the spectrum. I think the OP was overly focused on the NCP issue and actually did benefit from posters who tried to provide alternate solutions to his problem. I did have the hope that he/she would discuss them with a parent or counselor, as I mentioned earlier. </p>
<p>Apparently, some people just want to take others to task for speaking honestly, although the mods didn’t seem to feel there were any comments made that were rude, excessively harsh, or out of line. Since that point, the OP has received NO useful input that will help make an affordable college a reality for this kid. This is NOT the parent’s forum or cafe, where every thought and feeling must be analyzed…this forum is about finding ways to pay for college and helping kids realize when and how to look for more affordable choices.</p>