Eric

Wed, Feb 22, 2023 10:43AM
57:20
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
college, students, parents, high school, kids, families, accommodations, support, disability, college readiness, helping, iep, starting, independent living skills, apply, disability services office, disclose, teacher, terms, questions

00:01
Welcome to the show. And I'm excited to talk about college readiness, andpreparing to apply for Neuro divergent students. And our guest today is in the trenches working with families from top college consultants. And I'm gonna have Eric, introduce himself and givea little bit of background on how you came to be so welcome. Thank you.
01:18
Thanks for having me, Wendy. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. So I'm Eric, and like, I'm a clinical psychologist, and educational consultant. And before doing this work with collegeadmissions, I worked for many years in mental health, with teens and adults. And I've always loved working with teens. So it was a very natural transition to kind of switch over to thecollege counseling role, so to speak, I found that there actually quite a bit of counseling skillsinvolved. And it's just fascinating. And I love helping kids who would otherwise encounter challenges in the process.
01 54

01:54
Perfect. So I'm going to ask this, but then I'm going to actually pause and we'll cut it out. But is it okay, if I know you identify as neurodivergent? Is it okay, that I asked that question?
02:06
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I bring it up. I was, you know, it will probably come up at some point, but absolutely. Okay. To how long you wanted me to go with the answer or
02:19
fine. I just wanted to make sure you self identify as neurodivergent? Are you comfortable aboutsharing a little bit about that your journey and how it aligns with supporting the students thatyou work with today?
02:34
Sure, yeah. You know, it's something that I didn't really figure out until later in life, which, whichis true for a lot of people my age, because it just, there wasn't a lot of diagnosis going on whenwe were kids. You know, twice exceptional, I guess, is another label that works. I was identified as gifted as a kid. And, you know, I always felt kind of different. And I had a great group of friends, and so on. But as an adult, raising my own kids who are neurodivergent, who are nowadults, I was in the autism world. So I had a lot of exposure, also as a psychologist, and thenkind of realized, at one point that, that I'm on the spectrum too, and my wife and I actuallyrealized that at the same time, and then that just kind of redoubled my efforts to working withneurodivergent clients, first, as a psychologist, and later as an educational consultant.
03:32
That's a perfect transition and to support students and really have that strong background andcompassion and empathy with families and with students themselves to help guide them. So when working with students and that very transitional time in their lives, can you tell us aboutthe range is that encompass that transition period when they're heading off to college andgetting ready for all of that?
03:56
I'm not sure what you mean by the ranges.
04:01
So in terms of so let me talking about how do you support? How, let me just

04:11
back up here. Our staff sorry, he edits here, we're kind of all over the place. So start over here, no problem. How
04:20
can students start working on a plan to be ready for college since transition to college is such abig time in a student's in a family's life?
04:34
Yeah, that's certainly an important thing to look at. And I you know, one piece of it, of course, is starting early. If you're not really thinking about this much until late in junior year or senioryear, there isn't a lot of time to prepare, you just kind of dive in and apply. But ideally, familiesstart thinking about this earlier, and if they're going to work with a consultant, you know,approach us earlier, so that they can work work on college readiness, which is super important,you know, being fully ready for college not just getting in, but being ready to thrive andsucceed in college. And thinking about what kind of environment they need, you know, are theyready for? Are they going to be looking for a four year college living away from home? Are theybetter off with a community college? What do they want to study? Some of the same kinds ofquestions that all families are thinking about, you know, how far to be away from home? Canthey be and so on. But there are other pieces to like, what kind of support they will need, whatkind of accommodations they will need? And do they have the documentation to obtain thatand in college, so one piece of it might be, you know, getting appropriate documentation to getaccommodations in college. Some of it may be talking with the staff at the high school, ifthey're on a special education program, to be kind of positioning themselves as well as possiblefor college.
05:59
What does college readiness look like? What does that mean?
06:03
Yeah, so, you know, being able to handle the academics of college, I think of that as beingcollege capable. So if a student, for example, is doing really well in high school, takingchallenging courses, honors courses, AP courses, dual enrollment, where they're takingcommunity college courses, and they're getting good grades, there's every reason to think thatthey'll be ready for the academics of college. And I think of that as being college capable.college ready is, are they ready for the independence? Are they ready to live away from home,manage their time, make their own decisions, get along with a roommate, self advocate, withprofessors, and on and on and on? It's a long list, and they break it down into sort of three areas. One is self awareness, do they know what their strengths are? And what their challengesare? So that and then the second is self advocacy? Can when they encounter challenges,whether it's social, emotional, academic, can they step up and ask for help and pursue whatever resources they need? And the third is self management, can they manage their timemanage their emotional reactions, manage money, manage their impulses. So So those are three, three big areas.

07:21
Those are huge areas, three boys myself when so we're starting that or we're in the throes of it,I should say, we're not starting it. We're in the throes of that. But I like how you separated the college prepared with the college readiness. Because I see a lot of students that really was alight bulb moment for me in terms of that discerning the two that could be very preparedacademically to college. But where they start to struggle is that awareness, advocacy and selfmanagement, that readiness part? Yeah.
07:58
And so many families are focused on the first part, you know, are they taking enough APcourses? Are their grades going to be good enough to get in college? There's so muchemphasis on that in our society, and in many communities, where, where there's a highpercentage of kids going to college, that it's easy to sort of overlook the other piece, you know,do you know how to manage money? Do you know how to take public transportation? Do youknow how to do your own laundry?
08:23
Yeah. And I think sometimes families are overwhelmed with life and just family and work and allthat stuff, though. We don't often I think that's the value of our conversation today is a reallystart to think about that self management, that readiness component. So at what age? I mean,really good start this at an early age, and definitely not a senior in high school. Yeah,
08:51
yeah. I mean, if your kid is willing to start learning how to cook at a young age, then absolutelybring them into the kitchen and teach them how to cook at just about any age. You know, other things like managing money or managing, you know, an savings account or credit card,obviously, that would be significantly later. But definitely, you know, early on in high school, welike to see families, helping kids move gradually into that self advocacy part. Typically, youknow, I'm a Special Needs parent myself, I know that it's, it's natural and normal to be kind ofat the forefront advocating for your child. But there should be this shift over the course of highschool where the child starts to move into the driver's seat and they go to the IEP meetings, ifthe if they're on an individualized education plan, for example, and start to think about, youknow, helping formulate the goals and so on.
09:47
I've heard this and I've said this before, you know, in terms of parenting, you're a manager andthen you go into that consultant role and that seems what you're doing here as your student is then you go into that consultant role and that seems, what you re doing here as your student is in high school, really trying to to hand off the baton with these skills, do you see starting withone skill over the other work better? Or what are some unique barriers that you have seen andhelping families and students transition or develop that college readiness?

10:19
Yeah, well, I think you can work on on multiple skills simultaneously, maybe not on the sameday, but, you know, concurrently. And that's one of the ways I think working with consultantslike us can be helpful is that students are starting to get into that mindset of, I need to beworking directly with with professional adults, other than my parents, that don't, my parentsare not necessarily on the frontlines, but I'm directly speaking up for myself with adults,because they're going to have to do that in college, whether it's with their professors or careercounselor, Disability Services staff, so they need to get used to directly communicating withand self advocating with professional. So we are, you know, one step in that process. As far as barriers, you know, I think a big barrier is emotional, it's, it's anxiety, whether it's the parentbeing afraid that, oh, my kids never done this for myself themselves, they've never lived awayfrom home, you know, they, I've always made their doctor's appointments for them, you know,the parents can be very anxious about change, I don't know, if my kid is going to crash andburn if I just step back and let them, you know, do some of these things. But High School is a good time for them to start trying and occasionally failing. I don't mean failing courses, but Butyou know, failing at new things that they try so that they can, you know, dust themselves upand dust themselves off and try again. And of course, kids will have the same anxiety to that,you know, what if I can't do it, you know, I've never done this before, I've never made my owndentist appointment before, or you know, cooked a meal before. So that's normal, you know,when you're venturing into new territory, it's okay to be anxious, but that shouldn't stop youfrom pushing on.
12:13
Do you roleplay with the students in terms of like making an appointment, in terms of speakingon the phone is very different than texting? And so you know, in terms of answering the phone,how to make the appointment, where to schedule it, how to put it in, like your personal phonefor scheduling, do you do? What is your suggestions for parents? Or do you roleplay? oranything like that with this?
12:34
Yeah, I mean, we help with any part of the process. We communicate with parents, too. So parents, you know, if the parents are like, well, you know, how can I do this, we, we might kindof guide them through ways that they could make some of these changes happen. And, youknow, one of the kinds of role plays that we'll do would be a mock interview, if the student, forexample, is going to have an admissions interview, or, you know, last week, I was helping astudent practice for an interview for a summer job. So that's, that's one way that we can kind ofroleplay is, you know, I'm going to pretend to be the admissions officer and ask you about whyyou're applying to this college. And, again, those are good opportunities for students to getused to stepping forward and being on the front line dealing with adult professionals.

13:27
A recent blog you had on your website is all about the seven things students with disabilitiesshould do when starting college, can you highlight a few of these things?
13:37
I'm sure, I mean, we've touched on some of it already. You know, we've talked about getting anearly start, but but, um, in the article, I talked about getting an early start planning youraccommodations and services. So you know, for example, if you have accommodations,disability accommodations in high schools, such as extra time on tests would be a very common one. And you're thinking that that's, that's helpful to you in college, there's a goodchance that some of those accommodations are going to be helpful. And sorry, if those arehelpful in high school, they're going to be, you know, they may be necessary or helpful incollege too. So starting to think about, well, how do I get those accommodations? Do I have thedocumentation I need? Do I need to be talking to disability services offices in at colleges tounderstand how the process works? And not just accommodations but support services? Ifthere's a learning support program or an autism support program, what is the applicationprocess? When do I apply what do I need in order to apply so learning all that stuff early so thatyou're not you know, kind of freaking out and senior year that you don't have thedocumentation you need or the education you need about this stuff? And of course, we we helpwith with all that. We talked about self advocacy, so you know, I say more about it at the moment. Also thinking beyond Disability Service. Another point that I make in the article, whichis that, sure Disability Services plays a key role for a lot of our students, helping them get theiraccommodations and possibly having a Learning Support Program. But there's a lot of resources available at every college that our students can benefit from using, whether that'scareer services, mental health counseling, meaning with your academic advisor, going to yourprofessor during office hours, going to the tutoring center, there's so many resources availableto all students. And we'd hate for our students to kind of overlook the all the richness of benefits they can get from those services. And often, again, in college starting early on, don'twait till senior year of college to go to the Career Center to realize, you know, Oh, I better startlooking for a job go in freshman year. So you can, they can help you find summer jobs andinternships and work on your resume and help you learn interviewing skills.
15:55
That's fantastic. You've mentioned a couple of times about disability services and planningaccommodation supports and documents. For parents that are listening, they perhaps haveschool aged children, and they're thinking of Ida or federal law. How can you explain to parentsand folks that are listening how Ida really changes that support how that shifts in terms of lawand protection, and needs when a student leaves a high school setting to post secondary?
16:30
Sure, it's a pretty major change, and it is worth parents kind of taking the time to understandthis, you don't have to become get a law degree to understand it. There's not, you know, a huge amount to know, but it but it is really important. And that shift is that the the law that

g, ypstudents are covered by in college is the ADEA the Americans with Disabilities Act and, and it'sa different kind of mindset. So in high school, and before high school, the burden of schools onthe school district is for students to succeed for it's for students to be successful and to progress successfully in their education. In, in adulthood, and in college and in the workplace.And the same law that applies to the workplace, the standard isn't success, it's access. So it's just here's what we are providing to help you access the curriculum, maybe sitting in front ofthe class or you know, bringing a laptop to class or getting the professor's notes, or gettingrecording of the lecture, to access the curriculum, or, you know, physically being able to accessthe building if you have a mobility issue. But whether you succeed or not, that's kind of on the student. And so all those additional things that you might need to succeed, like coaching andtutoring and so on. That's kind of up to the student to pursue, it's not the college's obligation tomake sure that the student gets all that stuff. And the but colleges and workplaces can'tdiscriminate you if you discriminate against you have a disability. So you are protected in that respect.
18:12
When we're talking about that, college readiness, how does a family that has a students withwith a student with disability or learning difference? How would they go about selecting acollege? I mean, there's so many choices out there, kind of putting the academic part aside,how do we, as parents, select a school with our kids to ensure that they are going to besuccessful? And that we can bridge that gap with the college readiness skills and the advocacyand the support?
18:48
Yeah, well, the college search process, in some ways, is similar to what it is for parents ofneurotypical children for all families. And there's a lot of factors to look at. So location, for example, you know, what part of the country or how far from home can the student travel to goto college. And I find with the families that we work with students with learning differences,there's it's common for parents to feel that they're their kids should be relatively close to homewithin a few hours drive so they can come home on the weekends. Many of these kids also have mental health challenges. So parents worry well, if my student gets depressed or ifthey're getting overly anxious, they can come home and we can you know, they have a sort ofa safe place. And if they're too far from home, we can't really help them. So location tends is it's an issue for all families, but it tends to be heightened cost, of course, what kind of cultureson campus, you know, student is politically conservative or liberal. Is that a concern for them? How big of a call So there's many different things that that go into the search for all families.But the ones that are sort of unique for our families, particularly are the supports availablethere. So if your student, for example, has difficulty with executive functions with organizationtime management, which most of our students do have that challenge, then, you know, willthey be looking for a college that has academic coaching, which is similar to executive functioncoaching? In order to help them you know, make sure they get their assignments done on time.So there's kind of additional services that our families are looking for, and we help them findthose colleges.
20:43

Are there specific questions that a parent should ask before applying to a school?
20:51
Yes. So in terms of disability accommodations, and support services for students with learningdifferences, that's you want to do that research during the college search process. So when I tell people to contact Disability offices early and do your research early, I don't mean earlyafter you've started college, I mean, when you're looking at colleges, so that you have the rightones on your list to begin with. And that means having a separate meeting with those staff, sodon't rely on the admission staff to help you with these questions. They, they're great. They're wonderful people, but they're not disability specialists. So if you start asking, oh, can I get thisaccommodation college? And how many students do you have with this diagnosis? And we'rejust not going to know the answers. So make a separate appointment with Disability Servicesstaff, it will have no impact on your child's admissions to college. And do that when you're searching during the research process. And I have a list of questions on our website. So if you're wondering, like, I don't know what to ask, I will article on that.
22:00
Awesome. And we'll link to that in the show notes so that folks can find that. Yeah, that's perfect. What can we do if as parents, we feel our child is not ready to go to college, but ourchild still wants to go to college?
22:17
Yeah, so that's a great question there. It's not a black or white situation. In fact, there are students who aren't college capable in the sense that if they have an intellectual disability, andthey wouldn't be able to handle the academic rigor of college, there are programs located atcolleges that are non degree, certificate programs for students with disabilities, typically twoyear programs, but some are shorter, some are longer. And those are opportunities wherestudents can live on campus have that experience work on their independent living skills, getsome career skills. So there's that route for students who, who are perhaps not capable ofhandling college courses. But for those who can handle the rigor but still aren't ready to youknow, move away from home and, and be in school full time, they can do something inbetween, for example, community college. So typically, you know, with with the kind ofconventional notion of college, you graduate high school, you move away, you live at college,you study full time, with community college, you're typically living at home, so that movingaway from home and starting college don't happen at the same time, you're starting collegewithout the Independent Living piece. So you've broken it up into two steps. And at community college, you can generally take just one or two courses. So start very slow. See how you do withone course? See how much support you need? You know, do you need a tutor? Do you need anacademic coach. And then if you do well with that, kind of maybe take more courses the next term. And once you have an Associate's, you know, you may be then ready to live away fromhome and transfer to a four year college. So you can break it down into smaller steps. Or you can take a gap year and at least buy yourself one more year to become college ready.

24:17
Within a gap year, what do you recommend students and families focus on?
24:23
So it really depends on the skills that they need to master during that time? You know, are theysocial? Are they executive function? Are they independent living skills? Gap Year can be justabout anything you can imagine? So a gap year in theory could be just sitting at homewatching TV, but I certainly don't recommend that can be traveling around the world. It could be starting your own company. It could be working at a full time job. Lots of different things youcould do during a gap year, but there are also college readiness programs gap year programsspecifically designed for neurodivergent students, students with learning differences to helpthem become college ready. And those can be a great option for our students. In fact, I recentlydid a live stream webinar on that very topic of post graduate programs for students withlearning differences. And you can find the recording on our website too, or on our YouTube channel. So during those programs during during that kind of gap year, a student could beworking on academic skills, independent living skills, social skills, all the stuff at the same time.
25:37
And I IEP goals for later school years include goals to prep for life after high school. You sayCan, can they? Yes, yeah, high school student could they and within their IEP have goalsestablished to help prep them or prepare for that transition to life after high school,
25:57
there absolutely should be post secondary goals and the transition plan. Some of this is kind of required, how well or how much or how early districts are doing that can vary. And when I asked parents, you know, you have a transition plan, what's in the IEP about the transition plan,sometimes parents just sort of scratch their heads. That not much has been done yet. So youknow, the folks who work in schools are great, they're dedicated, they're doing it because they,they want to help kids, but they may be very stretched, they're, you know, probably workingwith hundreds of kids. So parents and students need to step up as well and be self advocatingto make sure that the appropriate goals are in there. For example, can they take a dualenrollment course, a community college course, while they're still in high school, to start to testthe waters? And see, are they ready for college?
26:59
If you had a magic wand, and you could wave it over all of your kids IEPs what would that lifeskill or transition goal look like?
27:12
Gosh, that's a tough one. Because typically, yeah, I mean, a lot of our kids need to work on

Gosh, that s a tough one. Because typically, yeah, I mean, a lot of our kids need to work on multiple areas, social skills, executive function skills, and independent living skills. But I think the one that is common to most of our students is the executive functions, being able tomanage their time and manage their assignments. So having something in place that grad thateither provides them with the support, so that they can gradually transition to be moreindependent, would be key. And executive function. coaches don't just sort of spoon feed thechild, but they teach the child skills and give the child tools to be more independent as they goalong. So something in that area, I think, would be the the one that I would want to concentrateon the most, because I see that with almost all of our students.
28:14
What can we do if our students need to take medication daily or eat a specific diet or accessother services? How can we prepare them to do this when we're not around? Is there any lowhanging fruit we can share for parents?
28:28
Yeah, I mean, those are certainly all things. There's no reason why those issues should prevent someone from going to college. Kids need to be pretty independent in, say, taking theirmedication while they're in high school. So if if the D approach in high school is that the parentis kind of reminding or nagging them every day, did you take your medication yet, that's notgoing to work in college. You know, texting them, or calling them every day is not really a goodsolution when they're in college. So coming up with a system to have that become independent in high school is critical. Whether that's an app on the student's phone or you know, a post itnote, on the mirror, in the bathroom, whatever that strategy is, they need to develop that inhigh school so that the parent can be confident that this isn't going to fall apart when they're incollege. Same thing for diet or anything else and college. dining halls are pretty accommodating these days of dietary needs. So you needn't worry that they can't get a special diet or allergen free diet in college. I mean, you still want to do your research and yourhomework, but colleges are pretty good about accommodating dietary differences.
29:52
Any questions that we could ask our personal students during high school to turn to help kind ofguide them so that they can start to determine what they may be interested in or what theircalling may be in terms of work and study that they want to focus on.
30:09
Yeah, this is an area that I you know, I love working on this with kids sort of helping themdiscover their, their talents, their passions that they want to pursue as they go along in life. You know, keeping in mind that, in this day and age, people have multiple jobs, multiple careers. So it isn't necessarily just finding that one thing that you're going to do forever. But it's not just about asking questions. It's also about kind of observing your child or your student and seeinglike, what do they talk about at the dinner table? What do they keep bringing up? What videoson YouTube? Do they what types of videos do they gravitate towards? What do they do when they when they're kind of idle? Or on vacation? Or have free time? Are they do they like to dohands on things where they're building things? Or making things or fixing things? Are theymore of a sort of a people person where they just like to schmooze and socialize and interactwith others? Do they love animals? Do they spend a lot of time you know, the family pass orshow a passion for animals? So if you can kind of isolate what they naturally gravitate towards,then that would open the door towards potential majors and careers? And yeah, of course, youcan ask them questions to like, you know, hey, what are you following? In the news these days?Or, you know, what kind of music are you into now? Or, you know, what would, what were youand your friends, you know, doing or talking about, you know, without being too intrusive, of course,

31:44
any real stories that you can share about someone you've worked with, that relates to this,where you've helped a student discover what they've wanted to do, or help kind of get themstarted.
31:57
Some of it is just empowering them to continue pursuing what they love. So, you know,students I have who say that, you know, they've always loved working with kids, that they havebeen a camp counselor during the summer and, you know, really just gravitated towards kidsthan I, you know, encourage them to that, whatever it is that they love, and have have beensuccessful doing, they can keep doing that and find a career in that. I've had students go intoanimal related fields, like veterinary science, teaching, you know, work with the student, andwork with students with other disabilities, too, I had a student last year who was deaf collegestudent who wanted to be a teacher, and applied to Master's programs in education. Just clearly born to be a history teacher. And it was just a great journey, helping him go through the application process. Sometimes students will have different interests, like more than one interest, and they don't see how they can connect, like, they love sports. And they, you know,they're very social, but they don't have any, you know, obvious like academic interest. Well, sports management could be a great fit for them, where they get to be in the sports world usetheir people skills, or, or if they're good was if they're interested in sports, but they're good withalso good with numbers, sports analytics, on data analytics related to sports. And I've had students who are good at tech, and also love music, well, sound engineering or audioengineering could be a great fit for them. So sometimes it's it's figuring out ways that twodifferent interests that seem unrelated, can actually work together in a specific career.
33:44
Yeah, that's huge. Just thinking outside of the box and helping to guide students because youknow, often students and even sometimes parents aren't familiar with some of the ways thatyou could connect those to interest
33:57
for your career. And I just want to say one thing on that note that parents you know, they're a

for your career. And I just want to say one thing on that note that parents you know, they re a generation older than their kids. So they may, as you said, they may not be as aware of all theopportunities today, and sometimes they have ideas that seem a little bit out dated, like, youknow, oh, you're interested in music or art, but that's not really practical for a career. I think there's more opportunities now to make money as an artist than they've probably ever been inhuman history with the with the internet and digital media. So there are there are lots of waysthat students can make a career out of their passion that parents haven't always thoughtabout.
34:40
Can we talk a little bit more about anxiety and the other students anxiety, whether it's in highschool as they transition or the increasing anxiety once a student arrives at college, how canwe help support that student?
34:55
Sure. Well as a clinical psychologist, this is their an area that's near and dear to my heart,helping both the students and their parents with anxiety. In fact, that's, you know, part of thereason that we exist, top college Consultants is helping make this process less anxietyprovoking, because it is a scary process. And anytime you're dealing with change and the unknown, anxiety is likely to go up. That's why the pandemic was so anxiety provoking for people because it was unfamiliar. So, with students, you know, a lot of it is empowering them,helping them believe that they can succeed that they that, that it's okay to, to be different ifthey have social challenges if they have an unusual interest, but that's okay, they can stillpursue their passion, they don't have to be the most popular kid in school. Helping themunderstand that, you know, even if they're not an A student, if they're a B student, or even a Cstudent, there's still colleges out there that they can get into and thrive at. And that there's colleges, you know, if they're more hands on their colleges have a more hands on approach.And also reassuring. The same for parents, parents are panicking about so many differentaspects of this process. Oh, my kid is not good at standardized testing. Well, most colleges now are test optional. So that's okay, if they're not good at standardized tests, oh, my kid doesn'thave any extracurriculars, or they don't have don't have any APs. You know, sure, if you'retrying to get into the most selective colleges in the country than AP courses may be one pieceof getting in, but it's not necessary for all students. So helping them understand that there's apath for everybody, and that what other parents are talking about, or what they read on theinternet doesn't necessarily apply to their child.
36:53
Where we kind of we talked a little bit about ADA and and the law and college and disability is astudent required to disclose their disability to a college.
37:04
That's a great question, I just want to say one more thing about the ADEA that we didn't reallyexplicitly touch on, which is that the the plan that the student might be on in high school, theIEP th 504 th tj tdi tth d fhi h h l thi i th '

IEP or the 504, that just disappears at the end of high school, nothing carries over, there's no,there's no automatic carry over an IEP into college. So you're starting fresh. And that could be good or bad, depending on the student's needs. But it doesn't carry any weight after you leavehigh school, you're creating a new plan, if any, in college, as far as disclosing, no, there's norequirement to disclose. And in fact, most students don't. And I don't mean that in a good way.Only about a quarter of students with learning differences disclose in college, which, for themost part, I think is not a good thing. Because if you're not disclosing, you can't getaccommodations for something you haven't disclosed. So most kids with learning differences incolleges don't get any accommodations because they haven't disclosed. And then they and they have, they're more likely to struggle. If you do disclose, and you do pursueaccommodations and services, then you have those resources at your disposal. If you needthem, if you don't need them, and you have you know, more accommodations than you end upneeding that's fine. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't cost you anything. But if you don't have them in terms that you do need them. You can't get them retroactively. You know, if you fail the test,you can't say Oh, well, I should have had extra time because I have a disability. It's too late at that point. If you have the extra time and you don't need it, that's fine. That doesn't hurt you.So there's no requirement to disclose bu
t it is frequently helpful to disclose. You definitely wantto disclose once you've committed to the college once you've said this is the college I'm goingto I've put down the deposit, then you should meet with the disability services office beforeschool starts. Get those accommodations in place, figure out what services if any need so thatthat's all lined up. That's pretty straightforward. The other question is do you disclose duringthe application process? That's a very different question. If there is something on the transcriptthat might otherwise be confusing to a college, like you changed high schools, your gradeswent suddenly went up or suddenly went down, or there's no foreign languages on your highschool transcript because he had a foreign language waiver. If there's something that's kind ofunusual, then you probably do want to explain that to colleges so that they're not, you know,using their imagination and filling in the gaps. And then I also have students who are passionate about their neurodiversity, and they want to disclose that because it's a key part oftheir identity. They see this is a core to who I am and if you don't understand this, you don't know me. So I'm going to write about in my Sa, lots of my students do they do absolutely fine,there's no reason to think a college is going to discriminate against you. There's no reason to think that disclosure would help you or hurt you in your application. So it's a personal decision, it's entirely up to the student. And I help we help guide them through that decision process.

40:20
We've mentioned ensuring that documents are in order prior to transitioning to post secondaryand and you also just mentioned in terms of Ida, and a lot of parents, again, don't necessarilyknow that, what do you recommend for parents to ensure that they have the neededpaperwork? For their student, when they're going to college, those student discloses what typeof paperwork would they need to bring with them to the disability service office to get thesupport that they're looking for.
40:55
So the most surefire way to ensure that is to communicate with the Disability Services office atthe college and find out what they need. That may seem kind of obvious now that I've said it.But it's, it's important to say, and the disability services office sometimes has a different name,it might be called the Office of Accessibility might be called the Office of Student Success or something else. But if you Google disability and the name of the college, you can usually find it pretty quickly. It might be right there on the website, here's what we need for documentation,there might be forms to fill out. If not, you can email them or call them and find out hey, my,you know, I'm going to be starting college next year. What do I need in order to getaccommodations for ADHD or autism, dyslexia? What have you the gold standard, if you have aneuropsychological evaluation that was done within three years of starting college, I don't knowof any college that wouldn't, that wouldn't honor that. So if you have a recentneuropsychological evaluation, within three years, you should be good to go with just about anycollege that I can think of. If you don't have that, I'm not saying you should panic or rush out and have that done. I did talk to a college recently that said, we're really flexible, we'll basicallytake whatever the student has, if they have an older neuro psych, if they have just an IEP fromhigh school, we'll take whatever you bring us, and we'll work with that. So that's sort of at the extreme end of flexibility. That's great. But some colleges are very rigid. And they'll say it hasto be a neuro psych evaluation within the last three years, which is why you need to check withyour specific college to find out.

42:41
So for me, supporting families of school aged children, we talk about a parent input statement.And I know we're talking about older kids, and we want them to be able to speak on their behalfand not have mom go to the college professor. But what I encourage parents to do is to kind ofreach out to the parent to the teachers and the new school year and kind of this is what mychild is, and this is what they look like. And this is what they need. This is a little bit about them. Because we know that teachers do receive or should receive at least an IEP at a glance,but it's just nice to have that contact with the teacher to really explain your baby. So now these are young adults, how do you encourage your families, your students to advocate specifically,is it appropriate for them to talk to the professor? If so, what does that look like?
43:39
In a word? No, it's not appropriate for him, it was a talk to the professor that has to be done bythe students would be
43:47
I have met the student I did not mean the parent I knew at that point, it needs to be theStudent Yes.
43:55
And there, there might be situations where there's another adult or another professional at thecollege helping them advocate. So, for example, if a student had an accommodation that theywere entitled to at college, if that was they had a written letter from the disability servicesoffice, and they go to the professor. And typically, not always but but typically students have togo to each professor in every term and say, Here's my accommodations, you know, just want tolet you know I'm this is what I'm supposed to be getting. If they encountered a professor who pushed back and said, Oh, I'm not going to do that, I don't do that in my class. Then it would be appropriate for them to go back to the disability services office and say help, you know I'mhaving difficulty with this professor helped me you know, sort this out. And Disability Services will step in and help mediate and work that out. Typically, that doesn't happen very often. So families shouldn't worry that that's going to be a common occurrence. So there might beoccasions where other staff would step in, but it shouldn't be the parents. And that's why it'simportant in high school to be making that shift for students to be stepping into the front lineand self advocating with their teachers, you know, if they're not happy with a grade, or if theydon't understand something, or if there's something they need to work out, they should betalking with their teachers not going home to their parents and saying, Hey, can you call up myteacher and you know, deal with X, Y, or Z?

45:30
I think kids even at a younger age than we even give them credit for can start to advocate forthemselves with the appropriate support and guidance, whether it's sending an email, whetherit's walking up to the teacher, and just saying, This is what I need, or have the questions, or soforth.
45:45
How, and the student might be anxious about that. And a student, you know, if it's, if theparents said, Oh, you're worried about this, or you disagree with your teacher, well go back andtalk to them. And, you know, the student might push back and say, Oh, I'm I'm worried, youknow, I don't want to can you do it for me, you know, it's not always coming from the parentsbeing overly protective, it might be the student trying to pull the, the parent in. And the parents can push back in that situation, say, you know, I believe in you, you can do this, let's,let's roleplay how you're going to talk to your teacher tomorrow about this, let's walk throughhow you're going to do that. So, you know, not just sort of take no for an answer, but work withwith your child to get ready to have that conversation.
46:29
Right, and then transferring that decision making to the student versus the adult. Not every student is accepted, whether they have a disability or not. So how do we keep a positive mindset when an acceptance doesn't happen?
46:46
Sure, well, um, first of all, it's so important to have a good well thought out balanced collegelist, which is a big part of what we do when we work with our students. So there should never be a situation where a student doesn't get in anywhere, I've certainly never had that situationwhere a student didn't have any acceptances. In fact, I've had a number of students who gotinto all the colleges that they applied to, because it was a very carefully crafted list. So, so that should never happen. If it did happen, I have actually have an article on that topic called help, Ididn't get into college. Now what. So folks can read that blog post it there are colleges with, with rolling admission, so that even if it's now the spring, you know, March, April, and you didn'tget into any of the colleges, you know, worst case scenario, there's still colleges with rollingadmissions that are accepting applications. But assuming that you're talking about studentswho who's not getting into some of their colleges, and they're devastated because they didn'tget into the one they really wanted to, or they're just not used to rejection. That is just animportant life lesson they need to, they need to build resilience that not everything in life isgoing to work out that not every job you apply to is going to work out if you you know, asksomebody out on a date, they're not necessarily going to say yes, that not everything, youknow, tried to get into a major in college or a class, you might not get into that. So that is just alife lesson that you know, they need to be okay with, with failure, if you want to call it that it's alearning experience. What did we learn from this? What are your options given that this didn'twork out? We tried to prepare students for that, you know, knowing that if you are applyingsome of your schools, or what what students like to call reach, or what I call unlikely, juststatistically unlikely, we know that most students applying to this college don't get in, sochances are you won't get in either. We know that going in. So that shouldn't when that happens, we want to kind of look at that as like, yeah, we we kind of thought that was going tohappen, that was the most likely outcome that you wouldn't get in just like most students whodon't get in there. And it's not a personal reflection. So colleges. First of all, they may begetting many 1000s of applications, they may only be spending a few minutes. We don't even know for sure that they read your essay, your letters of recommendation, they should but theymight have been in a rush and maybe they just rule you out right off the bat because of youknow, a GPA or something. Hopefully not that could happen. But even then, they are building a college class. They're, they're looking at their institutional needs. We need some students with full pay who aren't applying to for financial need. We need some we want some racial diversity wants a geographic diversity. So you come along and maybe you don't fit what they're looking for at that particular moment. It's no reflection on your shortcomings. It's just not a fit for what the college is looking for at that on that particular year.

49:57
Yeah, as we're winding down what we've covered a lot of ground here. But what did I not ask or not know enough to ask because that I should have asked
50:08
about me or about college. College Transition. College changes. Yeah. Me personally, you know, I didn't talk about all the things I bring to the table. I'm also a writer and editor. So I love working with kids on their essays. It's my favorite part of the work. And we didn't really talkabout essays very much, it can be a big part of the process of applying to college, it'sfrequently the most time consuming part of what we do. So the college list that's time consuming to and students. We didn't really talk about exploring colleges, either the process ofgetting out there and seeing the colleges. And I provide guidance to families on Well, whatshould you do when you're on a college tour? What should you be asking? What should you belooking for? It's really important to for students to figure out what they're looking for in acollege because sometimes, you know, it's not unusual at all, for students to say, I don't know, Idon't know, if I want a big college or a small college and urban college or a Suburban College ofpublic or private university. What do I know, I'm just a high school student. That's why you haveto get out there and see different colleges so that you can start to develop preferences and, and attitudes and reactions and say, you know, what, I loved the way this one was laid out, Ilove that. The residence hall, I loved the athletic facilities, I love the clubs that they offer, I wantto find more colleges like that, that's super helpful for us. So that we can say, Oh, great, youlike this college? Well, I know, you know five more that are quite similar to that. Or conversely,if they don't like it, if they say, Oh, that one was just too isolated too far from the city, I need tobe closer to a city or, you know, it was too big and overwhelming, I want something a littlemore cozy and intimate. Great, then we can look for colleges that are more along the lines of what you need. And I mentioned that the essay process, so a lot of our students are reallychallenged with writing, and even students who are good writers or haven't applied to collegebefore. So this is a unique process for them, where they they're having to write things that arevery different from what they write in high school. Again, we help with the anxiety about theuncertainty of that, that this is a new area for that. And students may have to do multiple drafts, that's totally fine. If their first draft is way off base, or really, you know, nowhere nearbeing ready for primetime, we help them get it ready, not by writing anything for them, or byusing AI to get it written for them. But just giving them you know, lots of feedback for what theydid, right? And what they should do more of and, and so on.

52:50
Where should parents start then? Because it seems very overwhelming, right? If you have theessays and then kind of the initial college visits, trying to figure out if you want larger, smallercity or urban, rural, where should a parent first start in terms of helping guide their student tostarting
53:12
so a great way to start is to just visit a few nearby colleges that are different from each other.Because even if your student is sure that they want to go to a different part of the country,because the climate or, or political climate or what have you. It's it's just not very practical to do a lot of college visits far away. Except during one short period, like the spring break, so get out. You know, there's often weekend tours available Saturdays, sometimes even Sundays, andtour you know, sign up, don't don't drive around on your own, sign up on the website for toursand go to a few local colleges. Hopefully you're you have some within driving distance. So students can see that you can both understand, you know, you'll start learning about the theadmissions process from the admissions officers, you'll learn about what should I be looking for,oh, I didn't even think to look about look at you know, these aspects of the dining hall. But then after I went into this dining hall and saw how noisy or smelly it was, I realized, you know, I havecertain needs that that I need to be thinking about. So once you get out and see a few colleges,you're going to start things will start to click for you. And then once you've built your collegelist, then you'll kind of know what you're in for what essays do you have to write. So the list comes first we don't really get into talking about things like essays and so on. Another thing that students can start doing early on is figuring out who do you want to writerecommendations for you which teachers know you well, and will be in a good position to writerecommendations.
54:57
If you have a billboard with one too For parents, what would it be and why?

y p,y
55:05
Yeah, um, I mean, there's there's two that come to mind to be honest. One is start early, whichwe've talked about, but the other, which maybe I haven't emphasized enough is to kind ofrelax, it's gonna be okay. Even if your kid doesn't go to college, even if your kid doesn't want togo to college or isn't able to complete college, there's loads of careers they can do that don'trequire a college degree. And even if your kid doesn't have the grades to get into what youbelieve to be the best colleges, there's loads of colleges that are dying for more students thatare trying to fill seats. So there's a college out there for everyone. There's a major out there for everyone. There's a career path out there for everyone. Your kid will be okay. It may take longer, and that's okay, too. If it takes a gap, your your kid doesn't go go to college for fiveyears and you know, wants to work for us. That's fine, too. There's, there's lots of different pathways to having a successful adult life.
56:09
Absolutely. And regardless of what that path looks like, you can always prepare for what yousaid that college readiness that awareness, advocacy and self management. Absolutely. Where can people find you and your services.
56:25
So we are top college consultants. So the website is top college consultants.com. Also have a Facebook page and YouTube channel. But I would start with the website, there's tons of free resources, even if you have no intention of hiring a consultant. We have a neurodiversity friendly college list. Lots of recorded webinars, articles, podcasts, so lots of free resources that anyone can access. You don't have to give us our email, your email address in order to see all of those resources.
56:59
Fantastic, fantastic. This was such a pleasure. And I hope folks listen to this and kind of getsome thoughts in their head for their families and for their students, so that they can be betterprepared for the next portion of their life and their journey. So thank you for joining us.
57:14
You're welcome. Thanks for having me, Wendy. It's been a pleasure. Thank you