Choosing the College that Fits

The school year is well underway and high school seniors are busily considering the next stage of their lives. That means it’s time for them to think hard about where they want to be next fall. We’ve written in the past about the value of a college education, when to start planning for college, and how to navigate the world of FAFSA and student aid. Today we’re going to take a slightly different angle and consider the biggest question of all – how do I choose the school that’s right for me? Is there even such a thing as a “good school” or is it just a “good fit”? So much of our work here at The Yellin Center focuses on matching a learning environment to each individual student’s needs. The post-high school years are no different; every student has unique needs and expectations when it comes to higher education. 

There are a few questions every student needs to ask her- or himself before setting off on the four-year journey to a bachelor’s degree. First and foremost, we should take some time to reflect on who we are as individuals and why we’re going to college in the first place. If the first answer that comes to mind is “I have to go to college to get a job that pays well and offers stability” that’s fine, but put that thought on the back burner for just a moment. What else do you want to get out of your education? What else would you like to experience or accomplish? Perhaps there’s a particular area of study you want to explore, or a big project you’d like to become involved in. Different universities and colleges offer very different experiences. For example, your blogger chose to attend a small women’s college with no sororities, a very active student government, and a deliberate focus on developing engaged citizens. This was after spending my freshman year at a large public university with strong Greek life, huge lectures, and a focus on research. Neither campus was better than the other, but it was clear which was right for my individual needs and aspirations.

Another question to ask yourself is who you want to surround yourself with. Research has shown that classrooms full of people from all different backgrounds do more to push their students to higher levels of thinking. That means that the most comfortable campus isn’t always the one where we’ll thrive the most. Ask yourself how you feel about entering a situation where you’re forced to think differently and form bonds with people from different cultural backgrounds, races, faiths, and political ideologies. How does a specific school stand up to our expectations of diversity? On the other hand, some of us really benefit from the comfort of being close to home, surrounded by other students in similar situations. Do you feel that you would benefit more from engaging deeply in a community you’ve grown to love, such as what you might find at a local school or community college? Or do you want to dive head first into the unfamiliar and challenge yourself to see the world from a different perspective? Maybe you fall somewhere in the middle. Take a few moments to consider your own limitations, aspirations, and expectations.

After considering these questions, it’s important to take into consideration the preconceived biases we already have about colleges and universities. First and foremost, we need to fight the inclination we have to equate the relationship between a school’s “ranking” and the quality of education we can get from a school. Instead of relying on one publication’s ranking system, decide what’s most important to you and build your own ranking system based on those criteria. Another resource that may lead you to schools you had not considered is your high school guidance counselor. Connect with current and former students of colleges you’re interested in to get a feel for the rigor of the classes, the nature of the instructors, and anything else that you have deemed important. And remember – you can build a challenging, rigorous course load at any school. It’s more important to find a campus that offers the types of classes you want to take and a variety of degree tracks you’re interested in. It’s normal and expected to explore a few different paths before choosing a major, so try not to lock yourself into a school that doesn’t provide wiggle room for exploration outside of what you think you want to do. We’re not the same people at age 18 as we are at age 20, so we can’t expect to stick to a plan we made our senior year of high school. 

After reflecting on your needs and considering the academics, look into the available extracurricular activities and clubs. When you’re not studying, how do you want to spend your time? What campus activities would you find most rewarding? Is it important that there’s studio space on campus? What about research opportunities or professional organizations? Again, the best source of information is often current students. The college website is a good starting point for information, but you won’t really know a place until you’ve heard first-hand accounts. You don’t have to visit every school you’re interested in, but make sure your top few contenders are on your schedule.

Finally, consider any special needs you might have, like accessibility issues, a learning disability, or ADHD, that interferes with your learning. If you make use of testing accommodations, or class modifications like recording lectures or receiving a copy of the notes, make sure to contact the school’s office for students with disabilities to get a sense of how effectively they operate and how supportive they are of student needs. Don’t stop there, though. Reach out to students and instructors to get their take on these issues as well. Some campuses are more open and supportive than others. For more information on navigating life after high school with a disability, check out the book by Susan Yellin, Esq., the Director of Advocacy and Transition Services here at The Yellin Center.

Picking a college or university that fits your needs takes some time and willingness to explore, but it’s well worth it. All those little details add together to make up some of the most rewarding years of your life.

College Tour: Iona, Manhattanville, and Marist

A day trip to picturesque Rhinebeck, New York took your blogger past several area colleges that would be good places to consider for families looking for colleges with strong support for students with learning differences.

Iona College, located in New Rochelle, NY was founded by Christian Brothers in 1940, and has grown to student body of well over 3,000, offering more than 45 majors as well as Division I athletics. For students with learning and related issues, Iona offers the College Assistance Program (CAP). Students apply separately to CAP, which provides professional tutors and counseling services, as well as coaching for students with attention and organizational difficulties. In addition, students enrolled in CAP are required to meet at least three times a week with their CAP counselor. For students who need less significant supports, or who decide not to enroll in CAP, the Samuel Rudin Academic Resource Center offers a wide array of accommodations and supports to students with documented disabilities.

A bit further north is Manhattanville College, which was founded in 1841 and presently has approximately 1,700 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students, enrolled in 90 areas of study on a 100 acre campus. We have long been familiar with Manhattanville and its supportive H.E.L.P. (Higher Education Learning Program) services. This program is available to students with documented learning or related disabilities who are registered with the Office of Disability Services and who desire comprehensive support. There is a separate fee for H.E.L.P. In addition, all students can use the tutoring services of the Academic Resource Center, which provides both professional and peer tutors in a wide array of subjects.

We have previously had the pleasure of speaking with Carin Horowitz, LMSW, who directs the Office of Disability Services and H.E.L.P. at Manhattanville and she welcomes inquiries from students and families interested in Manhattanville's programs and services.

Finally, our drive north took us past Marist College, whose expansive campus along the Hudson River covers over 200 acres. Marist has over 6,000 students and offers 44 undergraduate majors, as well as graduate and certificate programs. As with the other two colleges on our mini-tour, Marist offers a separate support program for students with learning and related difficulties, which requires a separate application and a separate fee. Students meet one-on-one with their learning specialist to work on such skills as organization, test-taking strategies, and writing skills.

Construction delays and downpours aside, we were pleased to be reminded of these excellent resources for college bound students who need learning supports.

Hitting the Mid-Atlantic College Trail

As the school year comes to an end and families finalize their summer plans, high school students and their parents will often take time to visit college campuses. We've written before about these trips and have come across an excellent guide in the New York Times The Choice Blog that should be required reading for every student who embarks upon this journey. There's also a chapter in my book, Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families entitled "The Campus Visit" with lots of advice on how to get the most from your time on campus.

Your blogger is planning a college trip of her own this summer, to check out some of the schools in the mid-Atlantic region that may be of interest to some of the students with whom we work. I'm heading off with a friend who is a guidance counselor at a suburban Maryland high school. We plan to visit Fairleigh Dickinson University's Florham Campus in Madison, New Jersey, and to check out its well-regarded Regional Center for Students with Learning Disabilities. We will then stop at Rider College in Lawrenceville, NJ before heading south to stop at the University of Delaware where we will visit their Academic Services Center. 

Our trip will then move on to Maryland, where we plan to visit Frostburg State University, McDaniel College in Westminster, and the University of Maryland campuses in both College Park and Baltimore. We'd welcome any of your suggestions for other places to visit along the way. Just drop a note or suggestion in the comments below. I'll be reporting back on this blog about what we learn later in the summer.

Photo of UMD-College Park campus: Arianrivan via Flickr Creative Commons

Life After High School in Newsday

A special section in yesterday's edition of Long Island, NY newspaper Newsday included an informative article about planning the transition to college for students with learning difficulties, with content informed by Susan Yellin's book (co-authored with Christina Bertsch) Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families. Part two of this useful series is planned for next week.

Susan Yellin, Esq. provides advocacy and college transition planning services at The Yellin Center.

When Should College Planning Begin?

An article in today's New York Times looks at the different approaches to beginning college preparation taken by traditional, nonprofit private high schools and their newer, for-profit counterparts. As the Times article asks, " Is it better to get a jump on the process but risk turning high school into a staging ground for college admission? Or is it preferable to start later, when students are more developmentally prepared but perhaps missing opportunities to plan hobbies, choose classes and secure summer internships?"

We think there is another perspective that needs to be considered -- that of students with learning, attention, and related difficulties who receive support services in high school and who anticipate needing accommodations in college. For these students, the process of getting ready for college simply can't wait until their junior year. They need to begin preparing for college almost as soon as they begin high school. This doesn't mean that they have to decide where to apply, just that there are decisions they need to make and skills they need to acquire long before they are almost ready to graduate. These include:

Self-Advocacy

Students with learning issues need to use their time in high school to learn about their challenges, to be able to express how they learn best and to develop strategies for handling the increasing workload of high school (and then college). They need to be able to ask for help when they need it and to negotiate for themselves. These skills are crucial to college success, when it will fall upon them -- not their college and not their parents -- to arrange for accommodations and to make sure they are implemented. Ideally, they need to learn about the Americans with Disabilties Act, which provides the legal basis for the accommodations that will help them succeed after high school.

Curriculum Decisions

All students need to take and pass specific courses to graduate from high school. But students with learning differences need to make sure that modifications they are granted by their high school, most commonly a waiver of the requirement that they take a certain number of foreign language credits, don't preclude their acceptance at a particular school which they hope to attend. Most colleges want their applicants to have taken a foreign language for admission and many also require that a student take a foreign language in order to graduate. Waivers and substitutions are possible, but not guaranteed. And not every major at a college may have a language requirement. Students who are offered a modified high school program without a foreign language, or students who attend a specialized high school which does not offer foreign languages, should be prepared to deal with the consequences when applying to college.

Testing

Students who have an IEP and receive special education services are required to be re-tested every three years, a process called a triennial review. Sometimes, especially when a student has had an IEP in place for a number of years and all is going well, the school and/or the parents may not seek to have full testing done for each triennial review. But the SAT/ACT exams require up-to-date testing as part of their process for granting accommodations (such as extended time), and college disability services offices do as well. Testing during the 10th grade year -- or as soon as a student turns 16 and can be tested with the adult version of the most common IQ test, the WAIS-IV-- is ideal. Colleges want to see the WAIS, rather than the WISC, the version of the IQ exam given to children under the age of 16. Keeping this information in mind during the earliest years of high school will help make both the SAT/ACT accommodation process and the college application process go more smoothly.

These are only a few of the issues that college bound bound students with learning and other difficulties need to start working on in high school. However ideal it may be for students to focus only on the immediacy of high school issues and to forgo planning ahead until college application deadlines loom, this may not be the best path for students with learning challenges.

Photo used under Creative Commons by Stewart Black (modified)

Life After High School on BlogTalk Radio

Susan Yellin, Esq., the Director of Advocacy and Transition Services at The Yellin Center, was interviewed yesterday for a segment on BlogTalk Radio about her award-winning book, Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2010).

Listen to the segment here.

Susan Yellin, Esq.

The half-hour interview was part of a series hosted by Beth Polner Abrahams, an attorney in Nassau County, New York, whose practice is focused on estate, tax, and special needs planning for families, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities. The wide-ranging conversation focused on the laws that protect students with learning and other difficulties in high school and college, steps students and families should take when thinking about college, alternatives to traditional college programs, and the practical issues involved in obtaining accommodations for college exams.

Mrs. Yellin will be appearing at several area schools and libraries in upcoming weeks:

• March 7th at The Community School in Teaneck, NJ
• March 14th at The Churchill School in Manhattan
• March 20th at the Upper Saddle River Library in New Jersey

Check out The Yellin Center's events calendar for more details.

Life After High School Book Wins Again

Congratulations are once again in order for our own Susan Yellin, Esq. Susan's book (co-written with Christina Cacioppo-Bertsch) Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and their Families has been awarded the bronze medal in the education category in ForeWord Reviews' Book of the Year Awards.

The awards are presented by Foreword Reviews, a print magazine and online review service for readers, booksellers, book buyers, publishing insiders, and librarians.

Earlier this year, the book tied for a bronze medal in the Education/Academic/Teaching category of the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Great job, Susan and Christina!

Life After High School Wins Bronze Medal at IPPY Awards

Congratulations to our own Susan Yellin on winning a bronze medal in the 2011 IPPY Awards.

We've just learned that Susan's recent book, Life After High School: A Guide for Students With Disabilities and Their Families (co-authored with Christina Cacioppo Bertsch) tied for bronze in the Education/Academic/Teaching category of the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Read more about the book here.

Resources at the JCC in Manhattan

We are big fans of the important programs offered to all New Yorkers by the JCC in Manhattan. This Upper West Side institution has an extensive "Special Needs" center that has programming for families and individuals from early childhood through adulthood.

On Thursday evening, April 7th, our own Susan Yellin, Esq. will be a featured speaker at the Center for Special Needs, discussing her book Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families.

Other programming is part of ongoing services targeted at various interest groups. Two of the programs that we believe to be of particular importance are those providing social opportunities and support services for teens/young adults and post-college age individuals, respectively.

The Adaptations Program targets individuals in their 20's and 30's who have attended college but need a supportive environment as they work towards their life goals, because of their learning disabilities or other issues. Adaptations offers programming ranging from exercise to social training, with a number of opportunities for peer interaction. We know of no other program in the NY Metro area that offers these kinds of services for this population -- and would love to hear about other programs if they exist.

Another program is called Transitions, and is aimed at teens and young adults (ages 16-21) with high functioning autism, learning differences, and communication difficulties. Transitions' programming is designed to build friendships while emphasizing independence and social skills. We get lots of inquiries from parents and young adults about opportunities for social interactions for young people with limited social cognition. These two programs can offer help for this under-served group.

A Supportive College with a Real World Focus

We had the opportunity last week to visit Northeastern University in Boston and to meet with the dynamic Director of The Learning Disabilities Program, Mary Barrows. We had known about and were particularly interested in Northeastern because of the co-op program that is key to a Northeastern education. The co-op program had long been a five year curriculum that integrated periods of employment with semesters of classes. More recently, the program has been modified so that students can elect to participate in fewer co-op experiences and graduate in only four years.

As might be imagined, the focus on real-world work experience has an impact on Northeastern students' ability to enter the job market when they graduate and the school's successful placement figures reflect this. Furthermore, almost all Northeastern graduates who are out in the working world have indicated that they were better prepared for working because of their co-op experience.

Northeastern is very much an urban school and outdoor spaces are not extensive. The campus buildings range from drab and utilitarian to soaring and modern. The campus spreads out over 73 acres and has 37 residence halls, 26 dining places, and almost 16,000 full time undergraduates. Campus spirit is enriched by the University's 18 division one sports teams and a stroll around the campus offers constant reminders of student support for the Husky teams.

In this large, urban setting, students with learning and attention issues can really benefit from the personalized attention and individual support offered by the Learning Disabilities Program.

Mary Barrows explained that the Learning Disabilities Program is an intensive support program requiring a separate application and fee. Students are accepted after submitting documentation about their learning or attention difficulties and are personally interviewed before a determination is made about whether they would be a good fit with the program. Ms. Barrows noted that the students in the program are assigned a learning specialist that they meet with two hours each week. They receive support from their learning specialist in the academic aspects of their courses, plus such more general learning related issues as time management, writing, organization, study skills, and self-advocacy.

Students who are not accepted to the Learning Disabilities Program, or who choose not to apply, are still entitled to accommodations through the campus Disability Resource Center, which assists students with appropriate documentation receive such accommodations and services as extended time on exams or note-taking services. The Disabilities Resource Center follows the legal standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Activities and Achievement

It turns out that all those clubs and activities you got involved in during
high school may have done more than just burnish your college applications. A new study by graduate students from the University of Nebraska looked at the impact of student involvement in extracurricular activities during high school. "Adolescents' expectations about their occupational and educational attainment as adults predict their eventual educational attainment, and these expectations seem to shape and be shaped by extracurricular activities -- which, in turn, contribute to young adult educational attainment," noted Sarah Beale, the lead author of the study.

Surprisingly, neither volunteer work nor holding a job during high school seemed to have the same impact as involvement in clubs and sports. As might have been expected, students who were involved with drugs or who had brushes with the law had lower levels of education and achievement.

So, what can we learn from this study? Thinking about the future is shaped by experiences. A student who is involved in the French club, or the math team, or plays on a sports team, learns about a new subject, or about teamwork and leadership. This kind of learning can impact educational achievement which can, in turn, have a positive impact on careers and adulthood. The benefit goes beyond the well known positive impact of high school activities on college admission officers. So, join a club or play a sport -- or urge your student to do so. It can be a helpful step in helping to plan for adulthood.

Focusing on College Issues

Yesterday's New York Times was a rich source of information for college bound students and their families.

An essay by Caren Osten Gerszberg, originally appearing in the Times Choice Blog, an ongoing feature dedicated to college admissions and financial aid, was included in the print edition along with comments from readers. Gerszberg wrote about the problems with the Common Application and the difficulty uploading essays and fitting them into the strict format and limits of the online forms. Her daughter had neglected to take all necessary steps to make sure her information was accepted by the Common Application and it went out to a college with part of her short essay missing. Commentators included the Director of Outreach of The Common Application, who noted that the difficulty could have been avoided by using the "preview" feature before pushing the "send" button. Both the essay and the comments provide important guidance to any student working on applications -- online or on paper -- this fall.

Even more informative was an entire special section of Sunday's paper -- which appears regularly several times a year -- called Education Life. This issue included a terrific piece by Abigail Sullivan Moore, titled Accommodations Angst which looked at an issue that we often encounter with the students with whom we work -- when and how to apply for accommodations, particularly extended time, on SAT and ACT exams. The article includes information from a number of experts in the field of education and disabilities, including our esteemed colleagues Matt Cohen, Esq. and Jo Anne Simon, Esq. Matt Cohen is the author of the excellent book, A Guide to Special Education Advocacy, from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Jo Anne Simon is nationally recognized as an expert in disability discrimination in high stakes standardized testing and higher education. She was also a generous source of guidance for your blogger's new book, with Christina Bertsch, Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families, which contains a complete explanation of the history and administration of the SAT and ACT tests and the laws governing the accommodation process.

Some of the issues covered in the article by Abigail Moore include differences between the College Board, which administers the SAT exam, and the ACT exam, both of which are accepted by virtually all colleges as part of their admissions process. The article notes something we find all the time in practice: students who have been diagnosed or first received accommodations only a year or two before first taking the SAT or ACT exams have a far more difficult time making their case to the testing companies.

It's prime time for applying to college. Most high school seniors have pretty much decided where to apply and are (or should be!) working on applications. Sophomores are watching their older classmates engage in the process of application preparation and juniors are thinking about ways to burnish their records and considering issues relating to standardized tests. Students with and without learning and attention difficulties should find the Education Life section of the Times helpful -- and will also find much information applicable to all students in your blogger's new book.

This is also a good time to remind our readers that consultations with Susan Yellin, Esq. to assist students with learning and other challenges to navigate the college process, are available at The Yellin Center. Contact Mrs. Yellin directly at syellin@yellincenter.com or call our office at 646-775-6646.

It's a Small World

Two recent events reminded us of the international reach of our work. On one day this week, we chatted with parents on three different continents, via Skype, about school options for their children here in the U.S.

The next day we received a note from a Japanese educator, Harue Kaneko, who has visited our Center in the past to learn more about how we conduct our comprehensive assessment. Dr. Yellin had also introduced her to his colleagues at CAST, The Center for Applied Special Technology, (where Dr. Yellin is a member of the Board of Directors) which is a leader in introducing Universal Design for Learning to schools across the United States. Now, through this introduction, Harue Kaneko is working with CAST to translate its work into Japanese and to consider how  to introduce the concept of Universal Design for Learning to Japan. In a recent email, she shared an entry into her Blog for Teachers:

引き続き、ニューヨークレポートです。
学習や発達を専門とする小児神経科医のDr.Yellinのセンターが、昨年移転しました。新しいオフィスはマンハッタンのど真ん中、ロックフェラーセンターが窓からよく見えました。
内装は、旧オフィスとほとんど変わらぬシンプルな作りですが、前よりも一回り広くなりました。

イエーリン先生。このお部屋は、アセスメントを受けている子どもの様子を、控えているご両親が見られるようになっています。（アンダンテにも、こういう設備ほしいです。いつか、お金に余裕ができたら。。。）

近況をお訪ねすると、奥様（イエーリンセンターの顧問弁護士を務めていらっしゃます）が本を書かれたとのこと。

Life After High School: A Guide for Students With Disabilities and Their Families 価格：￥ 1,806（税込） 発売日：2010-08-15 （お求めになれますが、英語です。） それから、イエーリン先生がCASTの理事をしているということで、後日のCAST訪問に大きな力添えをいただきました。（その話は、またあとで） 私にとって、いつもたくさんの情報と大きな知見を与えてくださるイエーリン先生に、本当に感謝です。

A Rave Review for a New Book

Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families has been "highly recommended" by Library Journal, “the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field."

The enthusiastic review of this new book from our own Susan Yellin, Esq., Director of Advocacy and Transition Services here at the Yellin Center, and Christina Cacioppo Bertsch, former head of Disability Services at Fordham University, speaks for itself:

Yellin, Susan & Christina Cacioppo Bertsch. Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families. Jessica Kingsley. Sept. 2010. C.272p. index. ISBN 9781849058285. pap. $19.95. ED


There are myriad accommodations that colleges and, to a lesser extent, work sites are required to make for people with disabilities, yet navigating the process can be daunting. Here, Yellin, attorney and founder of the nonprofit Center for Learning Differences, and Bertsch (former director, disability svcs., Fordham Univ.) provide students with disabilities and their parents an outstanding and highly readable guide to preparing for and transitioning to life after high school. They start by examining the legal landscape and cover defining a disability and creating a paper trail to document the disability and previous accommodations. They move on to college-entrance exams, how to select a college, and the admissions process, and then discuss the transition to full-time work. There is also a chapter devoted to dealing with medical issues without mom. The book ends with a useful list of resources, organized by topic, for further information. VERDICT An excellent resource for students with disabilities and their families; at this price, within reach for most people and libraries. Highly recommended.—Mark Bay, Univ. of the Cumberlands Lib., Williamsburg, KY

Library Journal, "considered to be the 'bible' of the library world," is in its 133rd year of publication and is presently published in both print and online versions. The review of this newly published book will appear in both versions and be available to "over 100,000 library directors, administrators, and staff in public, academic, and special libraries" reached by Library Journal.