Basic question -- colleges

Important questions to think about are: 1) Does he want to go to college?; 2) Does he work hard (self-motivated)?; 3) Does he have the cognitive ability to understand and apply complex concepts?; 4) Does he know what his LDs are and have strategies for compensating or accommodating them? If he has high school level comprehension and ability to apply information when material is read to him or presented orally, then he should be able to do college level work. To compensate for his poor reading, adaptive technology can be used such as books on tape or computer software that reads text aloud. However, if he simply can’t comprehend or use high school level concepts no matter how they are presented, he is not going to be successful in college. If he has to be constantly monitored to get him to do required work he will not do well with the independance of college. If he has good motivation and subject areas where he performs at grade level, there are colleges that do not have distribution requirements. (My son is attending a rather selective school that does not have a math or foreign language requirment for communications and music majors, for example, but does when these are relevant to the major.) A community college is a good choice if your son does poorly on standardized tests because he can be admitted without taking an SAT. If he does well, he can transfer to a 4 year college without ever taking an SAT. There are also vocational training programs at community colleges that lead to well paying jobs that only require classes in the area of study. There are lots of options. Talk to the guidance couselor early in his high school career.

The Endowment Corporation at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida is seeking information where scholarship information can be found for students/individuals with dyslexia.

Are you able to help us?

Thanks.

There are several schools that will bend the rules as long as their is documentional to estqablish the reasons why this student has not taken the said courses. Junior College or a school such as Beacon University may be your best bet.. Good luck

Carole,
I am a college student with a learning disability, so I am hoping that my insight will help you and your child

The first thing that you should know is that once a child turns 18 they don't fall under the IDEA ( Individuals with Disability Education Act) anymore. You know fall under the American with Disability Act (ADA) , which means just because you get accommadations in elementary and high school doesn't mean you will get them in college. What you need to do is make sure before you child goes to college have the testing update. Then make an appoint with the Disability Coordinators on campus, bring the testing results to see if they qualify for accommadations at the college level. I would also suggest that you and your child become very fimilar with what the ADA says, and provides.

For some students junior college or community colleges are the best start. Every student is different and for me personally a university was my choice. There are things though you should consider like the size of the college, how many students in a class. Is the the professor available for extra help? Is there a cost for tutoring or is it free? Are tape recorder and calculators allowed to be used in class? How many credits are recommended to be taken? Is there a fee for LD services or is that free as well? How available or LD service or disability services? How server or mild a learning disability or any disability will change the number questions and the types of questions, but these are a few of the main questions that I needed to have answer when deciding where I want to go.

The ealier you start looking at the colleges and there requirement the better off you are. I personally had to start looking my freshman year of high school just to see what they were looking for to know where I had to be in at the end of my high school years. When you go to college you don't have to identify yourself on campus as on LD student. I had planned on identifying myself as a student with a LD. So I made appointments for college interviews, and when I went I brought an unofficial transcript with me. It allowed me to explain my grades, and ask them what they would recommend.

The SAT's and the ACT's can be done with extend time or other modifications if you have proper documentation. The university I go to allowed me with proper documentation to have extend time on the entrance exam. As for the foreign language requirement most universities and college have some sort of foreign language requirement whether you do it in high school or you do it in college. So I would start checking around and find out what is recommened for foreign language especially if your child wants to go to college.

I recommend this advise to anybody, each college or university has GER's ( General Education Requirements) which need to be met to graduate, do as many as you can in your first two years. Before leaving I must stress that every person disability is different and accommadation made for one won't be made for all. I have recommend some general things that have helped me get to college and that I feel are important to know. You and your child need to look at their disability, look at the accommadations that will need to have met, look at your child's goals & hopes.

Finally some will go to a 2 year college and that's all they'll do, others will go to a university and spend 4 or more years getting there degree. Everybody different and everybody situation is different, I know non-LD students who will be in college for 5 years. Which seems to be the case know a days.

College has to be the choice of the child no matter how much parents want us to college not everybody is suited for collge or ready for college right after high school.

Does anyone have a good list of mainstream liberal arts colleges which provide better than average support for learning disabled college students?

If you get any good information Carole, please let me know- I am in a similar situation.Carole wrote:
>
> I am trying to understand how LDs and colleges work.
>
> If your child has, say, a seventh grade math or reading level
> and hasn’t done foreign languages, can the child go to
> colleges that have score and content (4 years of math &
> science and 2 years of foreign language) requirements to get
> in? How about distribution requirements and foreign language
> requirements to get a degree?
>
> How far will a school go in bending its requirments for an LD
> kid if they have very tough requirements for a non-LD kid?
> And if a college makes exceptions for the LD kid, is it still
> likely that they will have to struggle a lot and may not fit
> in socially?
>
> Is it easier to try somewhere like a junior college first
> (they are less expensive and seem to offer more, for lack of
> a better word, lower-end or remedial type classes for the
> problem areas)?
>
> I read about name brand schools making exceptional
> modifications and doing things like not giving out letter
> grades the first year, but I am worried about getting the
> feeling that a kid can’t keep up with his peer group and
> whereas a less-competitive school might be somewhere where
> he’d be more “one of the guys.”
>
> I only went to a nursing school, not a college, were there is
> only a knowledge focus and no foreign language requirements,
> and I don’t know if schools like that do anything special for
> LD kids. I actually can’t think of how you’d modify that
> curriculum — it all is very important to know and there is
> also licensing that you have to prepare for.
>
> We’re not at this cross-road yet (15), but if you’ve had IEPs
> all along, how do you adjust to the real world where your
> boss doesn’t give you extra time to get things done or
> understand why you always need to be reminded and checked in
> on to get things done?