Am I overreacting? College Board Accommodations

[Anonymous]

In early October, my son's counselor had me email her copies of all of his evaluations, and a signed request for accommodations to forward to the college board. Since then I have asked several times whether we had heard back, and each time she said "not yet" or "sometimes we don't hear for a long time". I have grown increasingly concerned, as the advice that I've received from everyone is to apply early (e.g. October for Spring testing) because it's frequently necessary to need to appeal a decision.

Since Monday is the deadline to register for AP tests, I called the College Board today to ask why we hadn't heard. They told me that the paperwork was received on Feb. 19, the last possible day to receive the paperwork before the testing, so we would likely not know until days before the testing. This was more than 4 months after I provided the paperwork to the counselor.

I then asked which accommodations were listed, and it turned out that she forgot one. A major one given my kid's specific issues.

We have four choices at this point. One is to proceed with the application as it is, which means that my son will not receive his full accommodations for AP or SAT.

The second is to ask for a change. This means that he won't receive ANY accommodations for AP (we would likely not have him take the test without them), but could receive full accommodations for the SAT.

The third is to have him take the AP with the limited accommodations he'll probably receive, and then ask for accommodations for the Oct. test date, which means that he won't have any SAT scores to guide his college search, and that he won't have a chance to retake the test if he does poorly.

The fourth option would be for us to switch to the ACT.

Am I overreacting, or is this a big deal? Obviously, I should have tripled checked that they actually sent the paperwork off, and demanded a copy of everything they sent, so I'm mad at myself as well.

I'm trying to decide how to handle this. Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

As an AP teacher, I'd like to reassure you. I have multiple students who will receive accommodations in the form of extra time. These students were diagnosed with mild ADHD only, so you should be fine. I can't remember College Board ever denying accommodations to one of ours students. They are very lenient (too lenient) about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an AP teacher, I'd like to reassure you. I have multiple students who will receive accommodations in the form of extra time. These students were diagnosed with mild ADHD only, so you should be fine. I can't remember College Board ever denying accommodations to one of ours students. They are very lenient (too lenient) about this.

Yes, but there's no way they will grant him an accommodation that the school didn't ask for. So, there is no way he'll have one of his most important accommodations given that it wasn't in the paperwork.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an AP teacher, I'd like to reassure you. I have multiple students who will receive accommodations in the form of extra time. These students were diagnosed with mild ADHD only, so you should be fine. I can't remember College Board ever denying accommodations to one of ours students. They are very lenient (too lenient) about this.

Yes, but there's no way they will grant him an accommodation that the school didn't ask for. So, there is no way he'll have one of his most important accommodations given that it wasn't in the paperwork.

Did you ask College Board what they advise you to do? Also, you need to email the person who was remiss about processing the request, and be sure to CC the principal.

What was the accommodation that the school did not request?

[Anonymous]

Ugh! I would be upset too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an AP teacher, I'd like to reassure you. I have multiple students who will receive accommodations in the form of extra time. These students were diagnosed with mild ADHD only, so you should be fine. I can't remember College Board ever denying accommodations to one of ours students. They are very lenient (too lenient) about this.

Yes, but there's no way they will grant him an accommodation that the school didn't ask for. So, there is no way he'll have one of his most important accommodations given that it wasn't in the paperwork.

Did you ask College Board what they advise you to do? Also, you need to email the person who was remiss about processing the request, and be sure to CC the principal.

What was the accommodation that the school did not request?

The accommodation that they did not request was "stop clock" which allows for breaks during subtests (e.g. When symptoms arise, student is allowed to get up and move, for example to the bathroom, and then return and continue testing without losing time because the clock is stopped until they return).

The College Board was the one who gave me the first 3 options. Of course, they did not suggest switching to the ACT.

I have emailed and called the person who was remiss, but she is out sick today.

[Anonymous]

I'd take AP and SAT with the accommodations that were asked for.

Take the ACT too.

Retake the SAT next fall with (hopefully) all of the accommodations in place.

[Anonymous]

I would be having an absolute COW!
I hope you let the principal know what happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd take AP and SAT with the accommodations that were asked for.

Take the ACT too.

Retake the SAT next fall with (hopefully) all of the accommodations in place.

OP here, the more I think about, the less I think that's even possible. With extended time there's 5.75 hours of testing on the SAT. Without the accommodation I think that's likely impossible for him. And if he doesn't get stop clock, then he'll be testing in a small group which means that if his symptoms get bad enough that he needs to leave anyway he disrupts every other student in the group.

My guess is that we'll end up forfeiting the AP exam, which sucks but sucks less than the other options.

I signed the papers for this 5 minutes after a 504 meeting at which we specifically discussed this accommodation, and provided additional documentation from medical specialists related to this accommodation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In early October, my son's counselor had me email her copies of all of his evaluations, and a signed request for accommodations to forward to the college board. Since then I have asked several times whether we had heard back, and each time she said "not yet" or "sometimes we don't hear for a long time". I have grown increasingly concerned, as the advice that I've received from everyone is to apply early (e.g. October for Spring testing) because it's frequently necessary to need to appeal a decision.

Since Monday is the deadline to register for AP tests, I called the College Board today to ask why we hadn't heard. They told me that the paperwork was received on Feb. 19, the last possible day to receive the paperwork before the testing, so we would likely not know until days before the testing. This was more than 4 months after I provided the paperwork to the counselor.

I then asked which accommodations were listed, and it turned out that she forgot one. A major one given my kid's specific issues.

We have four choices at this point. One is to proceed with the application as it is, which means that my son will not receive his full accommodations for AP or SAT.

The second is to ask for a change. This means that he won't receive ANY accommodations for AP (we would likely not have him take the test without them), but could receive full accommodations for the SAT.

The third is to have him take the AP with the limited accommodations he'll probably receive, and then ask for accommodations for the Oct. test date, which means that he won't have any SAT scores to guide his college search, and that he won't have a chance to retake the test if he does poorly.

The fourth option would be for us to switch to the ACT.

Am I overreacting, or is this a big deal? Obviously, I should have tripled checked that they actually sent the paperwork off, and demanded a copy of everything they sent, so I'm mad at myself as well.

I'm trying to decide how to handle this. Any suggestions?

That is absolutely ridiculous. When we did the accomodations thing, I dropped of the form and documents at the school on a Friday, it was in the mail that afternoon and we had a letter from the College Board two week later- granting what we asked. I do remember the form I had to fill out included the the accomodations we were requesting, so it was on us to ask for the specific accommodations. Our school does not have the guidance counselor do it. THer is a specific person in the LD wing of Special Ed that has that task for all students.

I would send an email to the counselor's supervisor documenting all of this.

[Anonymous]

College Board has gone digital - their strong preference is for a school staff person to upload docs to an online portal that parents don't have access to. You can do it the old way (mail) but it is faster through the portal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College Board has gone digital - their strong preference is for a school staff person to upload docs to an online portal that parents don't have access to. You can do it the old way (mail) but it is faster through the portal.

That must be very recent. We requested less than two years ago.

[Anonymous]

Contrary to what someone posted above, denials for extra time are common for ADHD. Be prepared to appeal. We did - got time and a half on SAT and double time on ACT. You have to be persistent and in their face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College Board has gone digital - their strong preference is for a school staff person to upload docs to an online portal that parents don't have access to. You can do it the old way (mail) but it is faster through the portal.

That must be very recent. We requested less than two years ago.

Started last year.

[Anonymous]

For what it is worth, I was told fairly early on that SN kids tend to do better on the ACT than the SAT. That certainly turned out to be the case with both of my SN 2e kids: 34 and 36s. But bombed the old SAT.