Eyes Wide Open: Finding the Right
School for You

It pays to attend college fairs and open houses on campus to learn more about what’s offered. Those are good opportunities to interact with staff and other students who can point you in the right direction.

spondence and conversations with university staff members and maintain good notes, in case of a future conflict or problem with your accommodations.

Tour Campuses
Make Contact

by Alyssa Quintero

There’s no special formula for selecting a college, but planning ahead and extensive research really go a long way in making the process easier and less stressful.

You’re going to spend four, maybe five, years of your life in college, so you want to choose the right one that fits your needs as a student and as a person with a neuromuscular disease.

“When deciding on a college, you have to pick and choose and weigh what’s most important when it comes to issues like accessibility, degree programs, cost and everything that you want to get out of college life,” says Matthew “Mo” Gerhardt, MDA’s 2007 National Personal Achievement Award recipient and a Michigan State University graduate.

Other considerations include campus housing, availability of personal care attendants, parking, transportation and more.

“It’s so overwhelming for every college student, but then you throw in everything that goes along with having a disability, and that makes it twice as overwhelming, stressful and challenging,” says Gerhardt, 29, who has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.

Here are some college-selection tips from current students and graduates with neuromuscular diseases.

Do the Research

Because your future is riding on this fact-finding mission, start collecting information about each school early — some say as early as the summer prior to your junior year in high school.

Autumn Grant, 32, who has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, is director of the Center for Academic Achievement at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. She cautions, “You can’t just jump into it and expect it to all work out. There’s a lot of planning going on.”

Start by locating information about the college’s academic programs and the availability of disability support services. Consult books, magazine articles and college Web sites, and request college viewbooks via mail or see them online. Viewbooks provide a colorful, albeit limited, look at the campus, the school’s top academic and research programs, campus life, athletics and the surrounding community.

Sherry Santee, a physical therapist in the University of Arizona’s Disability Resource Center in Tucson, advises students to contact a university’s disability resource center when they’re high school juniors, if not earlier.

“Students should start a dialogue with the staff very early in the process,” Santee says. Having a relationship with the disability office makes it easier to convey personal needs, ask questions and make arrangements for special accommodations. If possible, visit the disability services office in person; face-to-face interaction helps the staff remember you and your needs.

It’s also important to ask about specific documentation required by the university in order to be eligible for services, and (once the selection has been made) to fill out paperwork for accommodations quickly.

Grant emphasizes that it’s important to “know your disability” in order to find a college that suits your individual needs. As you make contact with various schools, you’ll have to explain your disability repeatedly and convey your needs to the disability services staff effectively.

Keep track of all corre-

If at all possible, make several visits to the campus to ensure that accessibility means the same thing to the college as it does to you.

Santee recommends arranging campus tours through the disability services office, which can be more specialized than general campus tours. Ask to go into buildings assigned to your major field of study as well as accessible dorm rooms. Note the functionality of elevators and ramps.

Even then, it’s hard to know for sure. Grant toured three college campuses before deciding on Northeastern University in Boston, which has a good academic program, as well as a large disability support services department and a number of students with disabilities.

“When I toured the campus, it seemed like the accessibility of the buildings was good,” she says. “They had working elevators, and I could get through the doors with my wheelchair.

“But after I got there, I learned differently. Their interpretation of accessible and my interpretation of accessible were quite different.”

For one class, Grant was forced to enter the building through a loading dock, and “I didn’t feel safe doing that.”