Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process

Eric Endlich: Learning Differences & the College Process

Share episode

Join me in today's episode as I chat with Eric, founder of Top College Consultants. Together, we dive into the dynamic world of higher education and explore the fascinating journey of navigating neurodiversity. Eric unveils his invaluable insights on empowering twice-exceptional students and the pivotal role mentorship plays in their triumphs. Get ready for an enriching conversation filled with eye-opening advice and heartwarming anecdotes. Don't miss out – tune in now!

Bio

Eric Endlich, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and founder of Top College Consultants®, guides neurodivergent students nationwide through the college application process. He co-teaches the UC Irvine continuing education course for educational consultants, Working with Students with Learning Differences, and co-manages an 18,000-member Facebook group for parents of college-bound neurodivergent students. Dr. Endlich has served on the Learning Differences/Neurodiversity and Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Committees of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), and was honored with IECA’s “Making a Difference” award for contributions such as a database of neurodiversity-friendly colleges. A national presenter and professional writer, he is also a researcher on a project to develop college readiness software for autistic high school students and a study to enhance student-teacher relationships for autistic children, as well as an advisory board member for the UCLA Tarjan Center. Dr. Endlich is regularly interviewed by various media including Forbes, Money magazine, College Confidential, and U.S. News & World Report. Finally, he is a neurodivergent parent and adult. Follow Eric on LinkedIn.

Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

Eric Endlich:

We call it college readiness. You know, are you college ready? And it's if you're doing well academically in high school and you're taking challenging courses, you might be college capable. You might be able to handle the rigor of college academics. But that doesn't mean you're college ready, that you're ready to be independent, move away from home, live in a dorm, self advocate with professors and all the things that go along with being in college.

Sheila Akbar:

Welcome back to podcast everybody, as I think about how we want to round out this academic year, this podcast season that roughly overlaps with the academic year, I'm excited to bring you today's episode, because we touch on something that I think we don't Talk about enough in higher education, which is making education accessible for all kinds of students. The more formal way to speak about this is universal design for learning. But I literally just saw a headline about this that said it's really clear. The research is clear that if we don't pursue a universal design for learning in which you know, neurodiverse students don't need this special accommodation or that special accommodation. The education is designed to be accessible by all. The only sustainable path to accommodating all learners is changing the overall system, not helping this individual person get that accommodation, or this group of people get those accommodations, not creating, you know, these sort of specialty, expensive solutions for various problems. It's thinking more on the systems level, on the foundational level of how we design our educational programs and processes and how people teach. And I just think it's very inspiring to read about that. Of course, any change in something as big as our education is going to take a long time, but there are good people doing this work and advocating for these sorts of solutions, one of whom is today's guest, Eric endlich. Eric's a real expert in the space of helping students on the spectrum and with learning differences navigate their path to college. And so I'm excited to have you LISTEN to Him and hear his expertise. We talk about, you know, what's the difference between college capable and college ready? How do we navigate translating High School accommodations into the college context, and when a student's applying for college, how much should they disclose about any diagnosed conditions in their application? So take a listen. Eric, thank you so much for joining me. I'm really excited for our conversation today.

Eric Endlich:

My pleasure. Sheila, thanks for inviting me.

Sheila Akbar:

Of course. So let's start by having you tell us a little bit about what you do and who you do it with, and then we'll back up.

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, sure. So my company, top college consultants, works with students around the country and even occasionally, particularly neurodivergent students, those with learning autism, ADHD, dyslexia, learning disabilities or mental health challenges, and then we help them through the whole college application process, including, you know, the search and the essays and all the pieces that go along with it. Occasionally, we were students applying to grad school too, but it's mostly neurodivergent high school students applying to college.

Sheila Akbar:

And when I think of that clientele, you are definitely the first person I think of I think you really like own this niche. How did this come about? Like, what's the story behind it all?

Eric Endlich:

Sure. So I'm a clinical psychologist, and I worked for many years in the mental health field with teens and adults, and have always really liked working with teens. I think they're really cool, and my own kids are interdivergent. I figured out late in life that I'm neurodivergent, and so I was already specializing in neurodivergent clients when I discovered educational consulting, and this seems even more fun than being a therapist, and so I switched over, and I've been helping kids through the college admissions process ever since there's definitely a counseling piece to it. But I just love learning about colleges, traveling to colleges, talking to kids about this, this sort of exciting moment in their life when they're kind of launching into adulthood.

Sheila Akbar:

I'm so glad you said it that way. That's how I think about it, too. It's really a special time for them, and there's so much potentiality just sort of at their fingertips, it feels like but at the same time, so much pressure, so much fear and a lot of things can get in the way. What. Whether they're neurodivergent or neurotypical, all of those things are happening. Plus they're teenagers, so a lot is also happening on that side of things.

Eric Endlich:

Absolutely. And then we had the pandemic, and the process just keeps changing, and it's it's stressful for families, and we want it to be as not only stress free, but actually fun. I think it's a very exciting, potentially fun time,

Sheila Akbar:

Right. There's so much opportunity there. And what I wanted to ask you about was so many families where they have one, maybe two, kids who have a learning difference or some other kind of challenge, they often worry that college is not in the future for their kid. Or how are they you know, how is this child going to be able to live independently if they can't reliably wake up on time or hand in homework or ask for help, or whatever the challenge may be? And again, that's not limited to just students with learning differences, but it is a little bit exacerbated. So what do you tell parents when you first meet them?

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, that is definitely a concern that we that we share and that we take very seriously college readiness. You know, are you college ready? And it's if you're doing well academically in high school and you're taking challenging courses, you might be college capable. You might be able to handle the rigor of college academics. But that doesn't mean you're college ready, that you're ready to be independent, move away from home, live in a dorm, self advocate with professors and all the things that go along with being in college. So that is something that we, you know, one of the first things that we kind of look at and talk to parents and students about is, are you getting yourself up in the morning? Are you able to manage your time, you know, turning your assignments on time without somebody kind of looking over your shoulder and all the other pieces that go along with independence? And if the answer is no, which frequently is, to some extent, the kids aren't completely independent or college ready during high school, then it's a question of, how do we kind of move that process along before they start college? That could be a bunch of things. That could be going to a college readiness program in the summer while you're in high school, it could be taking a gap year. Could be getting professional help to work on those things, like working with an executive function coach to make sure that that students are, in fact, college ready, and not all, of course, not all, students need to go to college, or they need to go to college right after high school. If it's going to take a few more years to be college ready? That's okay. They can do other things and work on those skills.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the challenges that I hear when I'm talking to parents of these kinds of children is a real hang up on the timeline and a hang up on what everybody else is doing, or their peers are doing this, or my peers kids are doing this. How do you talk parent through that sort of mindset shift?

Eric Endlich:

Well, honestly, I find it more commonly an issue with the students, because if a child's not college ready, if they're really struggling to manage their time, that's usually pretty clear to parents, and parents will say, Yeah, I have some concerns, and maybe a gap year would be a good idea for my my kid, it's the students that, in my experience, who are saying, No, I want to start college the same time as my friends. I don't want to delay this for another year. So I just try to keep that topic on the table, okay, well, we could come back and revisit that and look at those skills as they evolve, and help the child reflect on that. And are they going to work on those skills? Do they need more time? And sometimes, when they learn more about what you can do during a gap year, or the kinds of programs that are out there, they they change their minds, if not again, it's not all or nothing. It's not that you have to go to college and be 100% college ready. But if there are some areas that you're struggling with, you want to be sure that you have the support you need in college, like having a learning support program or an autism Support Program at the college that can help you get through. Because it's not just about getting in. I actually wrote an article last year called getting into college is the easy part, because there's so much focus in our culture about what do I have to do to get in? Am I going to get in? What else? What are colleges looking for? And sure, we're concerned about applications and how kids can get in, but we're also concerned about how they can get through and get out.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's a perfect segue, because I know another thing that I always turn to you for is, you know, what are the programs and colleges that have great supports for these students that would maybe be a great landing spot for a student with one of these sort of. Neurodivergent challenges or issues. So talk to us about the work that you do to stay abreast of what's happening in higher education, and I know you've got an exciting resource that you could share with us too.

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, thanks for asking. So we do keep what I call a database of neurodiversity friendly colleges and universities. Originally, I called it autism friendly, and then I realized that wasn't inclusive enough, particularly where they're not all autism support programs. And when I first started doing this work, I kind of looked for lists of these programs, and they do exist, and ours is not the only list that's out there, but some of the lists I looked at had a bunch of dead links. They didn't include all the programs that I'm aware of. So I thought, you know, rather than jumping around from list to list, I'm just going to create my own list that is more comprehensive and keep it up to date. If I learned about a new program that's just coming online this year, I add that to the database so that parents can see what the options are. And it's also because it's a database, it's sortable. So if you just want to look for the colleges in Texas or New Hampshire or Nevada, what are the programs in my state or near my state for neurodivergent kids? You can sort the list that way and look through it very quickly, because at this point there's over 200 colleges. And I've also put in the cost of the programs. I think that's a really important piece of information for parents, which, from what I've seen, is not included in other lists, because some of these programs cost 1000s of dollars above and beyond tuition. And as a parent, you want to know what what am I in for? So I've included that information as well. And there are some programs that don't have an additional charge, and that's great to know about as well.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, let me ask you a little bit more about that. When you've got a student who maybe is on the spectrum applying to college, how do you coach them through or what kind of framework do you use for helping them navigate what to disclose in their application?

Eric Endlich:

That's a great question. I've actually given whole presentations on the topic of disclosure and written about it in a couple of posts. So just to kind of like break it down. Number one, disclosure is completely optional. So at the end of the day, it's up to the student. Do you want to disclose your diagnosis or diagnoses when you're applying to college? You don't have to, but you can, and there's no reason to think that if you do that, it's going to help you or hurt you. So there's no reason to think that colleges are going to discriminate against you and not admit you because you would disclose that you have ADHD or autism, or that you're going to get extra points, or that there's some sort of quota, and that you're going to be automatically get in, even if you're not otherwise qualified to get in. That being said, there's a couple of situations where there are students do frequently talk about their diagnoses in their applications. One is if there's something confusing or puzzling that needs explanation. So for example, I have some students who don't take a foreign language in high school. You go on to college websites, some of them say they require foreign language for admission, but if you didn't take one, for example, because your school didn't offer them, which is the case for some of my students. They just explain that on their application, just a very simple explanation, and that's just one example. Maybe your grades went up because you got diagnosed, and you went on ADHD medication, and you started getting accommodations in the middle of high school, and and now you're you're doing better, and there's a shift in your grades. Maybe you want to explain that so colleges aren't puzzled. Why are your grades are different this year versus last year? So those could be reasons to disclose. It's very simple. You know, could just be a sentence or two, and that will prevent colleges from filling in the blanks on their own. You're giving them the facts that they need to understand your context. The second situation is what I call identity focused disclosure, where you don't have to disclose. You're not really explaining anything. It's just that you want to help the colleges understand who you are. And one of the key purposes of the essay of the personal statement is to help colleges get to know you. And frequently, my students feel like if you want to understand me, you need to understand my neurodivergence. This is a key part of my journey. It's a key part of my identity. So I'm going to write about it in my essay. Again, totally optional, but many students feel passionately about it and choose to write about it, and they do very well with admissions. There's, again, no reason to think that it hurts them in any way. And then I should also say we're talking about disclosure while applying to college. Once you get in and once you've put down your enrollment deposit, you've committed to to this particular college, at that point, there's a whole other set of reasons to disclose, and in particular. To get disability accommodations, like extra time on testing, that's a common one, but there's many different accommodations that our students pursue in college, and if you want to get accommodations, you have to disclose because they can't accommodate a disability that they're not aware of.

Sheila Akbar:

Right and that's that's a whole other process, right? It's not just like your high school accommodations automatically transfer. You do have to go through quite a bit of rigor morals.

Eric Endlich:

That is correct. They don't transfer automatically. And if you have an IEP individualized education plan or 504 special needs plan while you were in high school, there's no reason to think that it, as you said, will automatically carry over or transfer. Colleges are under no obligation to honor those plans, per se. However, you can with the right documentation, you can absolutely apply for accommodations, but the process of implementing them is very different in college, in the sense that when you're in high school, if you're on a special ed plan, the services and accommodations tend to get just sort of delivered to you. You show up at school and you get the services. You don't have to go around the school kind of asking for them or making sure that they happen. When you're a high school student in college, in many cases, you've got to talk to every professor and say, I have these accommodations. Let's talk about how we're going to implement them. There's much more burden on the student.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, and those self advocacy skills are just so crucial, right? We really want to make sure we develop them absolutely.

Eric Endlich:

So when I see a student who's a great self advocate in high school, I get so excited, because I know they're going to have a much easier path in college. If they have not gotten practice in high school, they really should start working on that skill to thrive in college.

Sheila Akbar:

And again, that's just true for every student. I mean, I was a type, a neurotypical, still a neurotypical kid, and I have so much trouble asking for and accepting help and advocating for myself, because I'm like, I should be able to figure it out. So I think that's just a skill everybody should be working on.

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, to this day, I hate asking for help. It's something I really struggle with, too. And as you said, even if you're a neurotypical kid, there's going to be times when you need help, whether it's, you know, going to the health center because you're sick, or talking to a professor about a grade, or who knows what, maybe going to the tutoring center, there could be all sorts of reasons why you would need to ask for help. So that's something that all kids should work on.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about that database again, because, as I've watched, you kind of announce, oh, this great University's got this, this program that they're starting next year. Here's this interesting that such and such college is doing. I'm sort of getting a sense that it's a certain kind of college that tends to invest resources in building out these programs for students, and maybe not the ones that we're hearing about in the media every day as the quote, unquote top 50, whatever. So tell me what you think is going on there and what, what do you see happening?

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, well, to me, you know, my my grand vision of the future is, is a more inclusive society in general, not just around neuro divergence, but around all kinds of differences, something that we call universal design, or Universal Design for Learning, where education is set up such that you don't have to have special programs because everyone is getting their needs met. For example, common analogy that people use is, if there's a ramp to get into the building, then everybody can get into the building. Whether you're using a wheelchair, you have a kid in a stroller, or you you're just walking or riding your bike. So when you have those kinds of designs that allow for more universal access, and the same thing's true for learning, then you don't need special programs as much. But that's that, you know, that's pie in the sky future vision to be clear, though, there are, there are some universities in Europe that are trying to be autism friendly or ADHD friendly. So it's not just my imagination. There are universities moving in that direction. But as you said, yeah, it's not all colleges that are equally focused on providing these services. The vast majority of colleges provide a basic level of services and don't have special programs for kids with learning differences. There are, you know, again, couple 100 in the database that do, some of them are flagship state universities that if you live in that state, you would you would know that college, whether University of Delaware, University of Maryland, University of Tennessee, there's a number of colleges that are high profile within their states that have support programs, University of Montana, and then there's a number of small private college. Colleges that have those support programs, too small, medium sized, private colleges, but the colleges that people run across in the media, as you said over and over, at the top 50 to 200 most selective colleges, they don't tend to have the programs as often. There's you don't see it. You don't see it very often, those colleges already have far more applicants than they can serve. I'm imagining they feel like, you know, we've already got our hands full. We don't need to bring in more applicants by adding more programs. There may be other reasons. I don't, honestly know. I do remember talking to one fairly coveted College, and they said, We don't have a program like that, and we're not going to because our students wouldn't use it. Our students would not feel comfortable going to those programs. And that's an issue that that comes up sometimes where I know the student could benefit, and the student feels like I don't want to go to any special program. I just want to go to college, and unfortunately, sometimes they need those services to thrive, so they really need to kind of consider that option.

Sheila Akbar:

Right. Because, to be clear, neurodivergence has nothing to do with what we think of as traditional intelligence, right? These are some of the sharpest, most brilliant kids I've ever met. Which brings me to the next thing that I want to ask you, probably the last question we have time for you, mentioned one of your favorite populations to work with, what we call twice exceptional. So definition of twice exceptional, and tell us why that's your favorite.

Eric Endlich:

Sure. So twice exceptional or 2e that's the number two in the letter E means that you have a learning difference, and also that you're gifted or talented, so that you're sort of special in some way of having a extraordinary skill or high level of capability, and also some sort of challenge or learning difference, and that I love working out with that population, and I suppose I'm twice exceptional myself, Although I don't know if you know if that label existed when I was a kid. They're really interesting, fun kids to work with. As you said, you know, they often have amazing abilities in certain areas and challenges. And what happens is, unfortunately, before they get to college, they often run into an issue in one direction or another. Either the school looks at them and says, Oh, your kid's getting good grades. They don't need any extra support or services. They'll look at their transcript. It's fine when they might, in fact, be really struggling socially. They might be struggling organizationally, and really benefit from some supports or accommodations. Or the flip side is because they have a certain label, let's say autism, they get sort of undersold, and a school might say, Oh, this kid doesn't need to be in an AP course, or to go to college or to apply to certain kinds of colleges when they might be perfectly capable.

Sheila Akbar:

Right. And one of the I mean, there's a lot sort of in between those two extremes, too. One of the situations I've seen is a student who is very smart, not feeling challenged in school, and then becomes a bit disengaged because of it. And parents are thinking, well, this kid has no motivation. They have some other challenge, when really what they need is somebody, someone to meet them where they are, talk just about how you work with these kids.

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, that absolutely happens a lot. I suppose it happened to me. I was super bored in school. I mean, I still got good grades, but I didn't feel very engaged. I felt like I was just kind of phoning it in. But I definitely see what you're talking about, where sometimes kids only put in the effort when it's that one subject that they really love and the other subjects. They can't really see the point of doing homework because they don't care about the subject, or maybe they don't do the homework when they feel like it's too easy. I already know this stuff. Why do I have to do these assignments for stuff that I'm already good at,

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah or, my favorite is when they take issue with the premise of the assignment itself, like, this is not the right way to test my knowledge of x, so I'm not going to do it. Yeah?

Eric Endlich:

Yeah, that's I can see that happening too. And so there's no easy answer to it, but I think part of it is finding that purpose, finding your why, as we sometimes say as adults. So if a kid says, Well, you know, I want to be an engineer or I want to be a professional actor or a musician or a scientist or doctor, then you can show them the pathway to get there. Oh, well, you want to go to medical school. You have to have good grades in college. Oh, college. You have to have good grades in high school. Oh, they have good grades in high school. You got to do the, do the assignment. So when they kind of, when you connect the dots for them, some of them will kind of get on board. But it doesn't necessarily happen instantly really.

Sheila Akbar:

Right. It's always a journey, right? And I think this is where mentors like you can be really valuable to a student, right? Understand them from just a very different perspective.

Eric Endlich:

Sometimes we see our kids changing schools too. Some of them will go from a public school where they just kind of were lost in the shuffle to a private one on one school, where it's one student and one teacher, and they can just zip ahead at their own pace because the rest of the class isn't holding them back, or the teacher is adapting to their learning style. So sometimes the parents will help make adjustments so that the kid can thrive in high school.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's great, and that's the goal, right? Thrive in high school and college, putting one before the other, absolutely. Yeah, well, I think that's a great place to leave it. Thank you so much. This is a great conversation, Eric.

Eric Endlich:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me on your show, Sheila,

Sheila Akbar:

yeah, and listeners, we're going to link all these resources and Eric's website in the show notes too, so you can get more information. And I follow Eric on LinkedIn. I think it's great. So you should do that too. Thanks, Eric. Yeah, thank you. Well. I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope it was super informative for you. Eric really is a wonderful expert in this space. There are others as well. And if you are in need of this sort of support, if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me. I'm always happy to connect you to one of my guests or somebody else in my network who can help you with your particular situation. Next, people have a replay of the college essay writing session I did with a number of my colleagues last week. It was a fantastic session, and I had so much fun talking about the essay writing process, and really like how fulfilling and fun and transformational that process could be. So tune in next week to hear that, and then we'll go on a little hiatus for the summer. But of course, you can still follow me on LinkedIn. Check out our website for exciting happenings. All right, everybody, we'll talk to you next week. Bye.