Cross Post from Special Needs Board

[Miss Marple]

It seems that most on this forum have younger children, but I'm going to throw this out anyway in the hope that someone can give me guidance.

 

My son was given a LD diagnosis in 8th grade. At the time the psychologist told me that what we were doing at home was what she would recommend so I really got no help other than a piece of paper that validated what I was seeing. Now he is a high school senior. He has taken concurrent courses at our local university (4 year) since spring of his junior year. He does well (except he got a C this semester in Spanish 2 which was not unexpected) and will graduate with about 35 credit hours. He has taken upper level maths (currently enrolled in calculus 1) as well as a lot of the freshman gen eds.

 

We have tested using the ACT and the SAT since 8th grade. Recently - the past 2 years - his ACT composite has stayed about the same (22) but his subscores bounce around randomly. He has had high scores in math (27) and science (27) and reading is often good if the content is of interest to him. This last ACT had scores of 21 and 22 in all subjects except a 25 in science. For some reason, even with the college courses under his belt, he cannot break the 22 composite. However it was the Dec. 4 test which came the same week as finals week in his college courses.

 

His plans post graduation include taking a year off to spend at a Bible School in England where his brother went in his own senior year. We fully support this because he needs a year to mature and gain some perspective about life. He is a great boy, compliant and fun, and just earned Eagle Scout. He is no slouch. He works far harder (but probably less effectively) than his brothers but is always knocked down in the end. It's hard on him and it's hard for me to watch.

 

I know that he will get accepted at our state schools esp. with his concurrent course work showing his abilities. But here's the question: am I making things harder for him by having him take the ACT so much and never improving? I have registered both boys for the April test and I considered having him take the SAT sometime this spring as well. I thought that he should take the tests before taking the year off because things will be more fresh in his mind, but that may not be a valid choice with a LD student. He has not made application to college yet, and I'm not sure about what to do there, either: apply now and ask for a deferment? Apply when he returns from England?

 

I know that he won't be getting any grand scholarships so should we even bother having him do more testing? The state schools have recently started super-scoring the ACT and with his randomness, he has good scores in almost all subsections (English is always the lowest).

 

So:

1. Should we continue taking the ACT

2. Should I have him retested in order to gain accommodations? (He says he has no problem finishing in the time given)

3. Should he make application now and seek deferment?

 

Any other advice is greatly welcomed :)

[creekland]

Is there any chance he'd be interested in a score optional school? He seems like the ideal candidate for one.

 

Personally, I'd probably skip more testing unless HE wanted to give it a try.

 

I'm not sure whether to apply now or later. If you know colleges he might be interested in, give them a call (or send an e-mail) and ask for their advice.

[Pegasus]

I would let him stop testing. He may be able to bring up his composite a bit by continued testing but that won't really help him as most merit aid would require much higher scores to be competitive. If he is finishing before the time is up, then accommodations during testing would be of no help. They only get more time.

 

If he has a good idea of where he wants to go to school AND that school allows deferments, then it would probably be comforting to know that he already has a place during his gap year. Otherwise, however, it is fine to wait a year before applying. Gap years are getting more common and since he will have a solid explanation of what he did with that year, the schools will accept it with no problems.