What’s My #1 Piece of Advice for College Readiness?
My neurodiverse student will be starting college (in 6 months, in a year, in two years…)
What’s your #1 piece of advice for college readiness?
I am a special needs service navigation consultant and I have an ASD college student, so I have worked on more than one side of this issue. So, here’s what I say when asked this question.
My #1 piece of advice - Target college readiness soft skills in high school through the ITP process, with targeted IEP goals, and by accessing other special needs services, restructuring family life, and engagement in community activities. Get the student ready over the course of high school to do the non-academic things that will support college success. These are skills like:
Self-management
Self-insight
Knowing when I need help with something and how to get it
Verbal expression, informal reciprocal communication
Emotional and behavioral awareness and regulation
Organization
Knowing the various components of support and how to access them
Finding one’s people
And more
In other words, they should be learning to get themselves up and ready for school, know when something isn’t working and why, be able to ask for and use help, effectively express themselves verbally, identify and manage their emotions and know what works for them and what doesn’t, track their own school work and get it done independently, know what their IEP serves are and what they do for them, have friends, etc.....
If they can’t do these things (to some degree) by the time they land on campus, or have a plan for how to accommodate them, they can’t be successful in college. So these are all things to start working on in high school.
#1.5 piece of advice - your student should ask for EVERYTHING in terms of academic and other accommodations that they think might help and that would be supported by their documentation. Remember, 4-year college will raise the academic expectation bar, can be very fast paced, less individualized attention, and with less hand holding than in high school.
And there will be no one (outside a special program, but that’s a whole different topic) to ensure the student is doing well; the only mandate is that the college ensure the student has ACCESS to the education.
This is often a true shocker for smarty pants quirky kids who were rocking their academics in high school, where they had IEPs, resources teachers, special ed case managers, academic counselors, and mom to ensure their education. After the transition to college too many kids crash and burn in their first year – how many times have we heard “college didn’t quite work out for him”. This may be less about “them” and more about the preparation.
But we can ease this transition by having a robust package of accommodations recommended in the 12th grade IEP or 504, and hopefully adopted by the college and ready to go if they start to struggle.
Once your student has their academic accommodations approved by the college’s Disabled Students Program office then your student can pick and choose what accommodation to use for any given class. Better to have it approved and not use it than need it and not have it until they get it approved (this takes time and accommodations are NOT retroactive). And don’t forget assistive technology, housing accommodations, meal accommodations.
And….. your student can also ask for“unofficial accommodations” from various programs, activities, and departments throughout campus (such as adjustments to program policies based on disability needs).
Moral of the story – get every accommodation and support in place before the student starts on the first day of classes and then use or don’t use them as needed. In my experience, the biggest mistake new college students (or new transfer students) and their families make is to have the “everything will be fine” mindset about what they can do and be resistant to get the help in place. Or to have the “wait and see” attitude.
But by the time there is a challenge it is now often too late to get the supports in place in time and the student is so anxious by the issue at hand they don’t have the mental energy to do the damage control necessary. Just get the supports in place first, like an insurance plan, and then use what makes sense as it’s needed.