‘Autism is worth a grade’

[Extracurricularfatigue]

Sorry, this is a bit long.

DS is year 12 and has late diagnosed ASD (15) and ADHD (17). He is very bright to talk to and in his freestyle written ideas but wasn’t able to cope very well with the GCSE structures or revision so has a mixed bag of grades. He has continued to struggle at A level. He’s currently predicted 3Bs and we’re waiting to find out what his AS grades will be with no great optimism for much higher.

He has refused to engage at all with university courses until the last week or so, however hard we’ve tried, but has now finally got interested. He has decided he wants to study physics, with maybe computer science. This is a turnaround as until now he’s only ever wanted to do computing. He got a 7 for Physics GCSE.

Obviously none of these grades is bad in themselves, but he is refusing to accept reality. He wants to apply for universities like Durham and Imperial, which are looking for A*s and As. He won’t engage with the reality of things, and says a friend has told him ‘Autism is worth a grade’ in offers.

I understand that a good interview and reference together with his diagnosis might lead to a contextual offer which may be slighter lower than standard. But I really doubt he can bridge the gap to the extent required, and I’m so concerned he will end up putting enormous pressure on himself and failing to get in anywhere.

In my day back in the last century, physics courses went into clearing even at Russell Group because they were so undersubscribed. I don’t know if that’s still the case but I assume he would be fine in clearing regardless if it came to it - particularly if he did end up with 3 Bs. But it would be so much better for his mental health to apply for places he has a realistic chance of getting into, wouldn’t it?

@Extracurricularfatigue just another thought, in our case we didn’t really consider offers that come up in clearing purely because of issues that can develop regarding accommodation.
I know it’s not an issue everywhere but it can be quite a major problem in some places.
My DS would only consider en-suite accommodation (due to being uncomfortable about sharing bathroom with strangers) if he’d not got one I don’t think he would have gone, sounds extreme but it was a very important factor for him, linked to his ASD.

[quote Divoc2020]@My0My In my experience universities are often better at offering support to students with SEN (not send) than schools are since they are dealing with much higher numbers. Support varies but might include organisational support/ dedicated buddy support/ IT support/ special arrangements etc all to enable students to complete their course.
One of my DS1's friends struggled at school with patchy support, but really excelled at uni.[/quote]
Durham is (ahem) not necessarily one of those universities.

I would say more but DC is probably easily identifiable from circumstances, and hasn’t finished there yet...

Hi all. Sorry not to come back for a while. I'm almost always MNetting on my phone and I'm really back at proper posts on there.

There are more really helpful and thoughtful posts, so thank you. I do think accommodation through clearing could cause issues, so it's one to give real thought to. A catered hall would very definitely be the best option for him in the first year, although he could cope with a shared bathroom. He's keen to leave home as his siblings are loud and set off his sensory issues, and also of course sees it as freedom from our irrational' rules around not playing games all day.

We had a chat about maths and physics. He was always very good at maths until A level (his only 9 at GCSE) and he reckons it's the abstract maths that he's struggling with. He thinks that the practical application of maths for physics suits his brain better. I looked through some modules on some websites with him - and he hadn't realised that you could do that, so it was helpful in itself to find that out - and he didn't seem thrown by any of the maths content. It's all impenetrable to me but DH is more familiar with it and he reckons it does stack up in terms of areas of maths and strengths.

Anyway, the good news is that he has started to be more realistic, and is looking at unis like Swansea, who are ABB/BBB level. I am however slightly nervous that the move to physics has been inspired by the fact that he's hugely struggling with his current computer science project, rather than because it's genuinely the right area for him. On the other hand, I personally did zero research into my own degree subject, so it's a bit pot and kettle right now, and my husband got into university to read one subject and changed to another before he arrived.

I do remain very concerned about his general motivation, and the likelihood that he will get distracted by gaming and his own disorganisation. Once he's getting to the point of making any meaningful shortlist of options, we need to look very carefully at the support for kids with SEND. Is the Student Room a good resource for anecdotal stuff? I know from long experience with schools over the years for him and his siblings with other issues that what you are TOLD is the SEND provision, and what is actually IS, are often two different things.

DS really struggled with catered accommodation. Shared dining halls can be incredibly noisy places. Good luck though - we liked the look of Swansea.

Thanks. DS eats at the speed of sound, and will eat anything at all, so I imagine he will bolt his food and run - much like he does at home!

Ah, not so much of a problem then! DS was/is the ultimate in difficult to cater for, and extremely mouse sensitive on top.

*noise sensitive. Mice are not the problem.

Hahaha. No, his siblings drive him mad, but they drive me quite mad too!

His little brother also has ASD and needs ear defenders at school but that's never been a problem for him.

Once you decided on going you can apply for DSA (disabled student allowance) both mine got it (one dyslexic, one Aspergers) they have been given computers, printers and other various resources for their courses. They were also awarded an amount of mentoring (non achedemic) but neither have actual taken it up ( flaw in the system if you ask me) as they have to initiate it themselves.
Problems we found with ASD DS was, not eating that well, not cooking much living off pot noodles, pizza and cereal. Clothes washing became a real problem, the launderettes on campus were always busy and he just gave up all the time. He went a whole term not washing any clothes 😳
Time management ( not helped by gaming too late at night) not much help engagement when things did go wrong.
He has made friends, likes his flatmates, has a house for year 2 but now has a lot of work to resit/ catch up on in August.
We are talking with his uni about putting more support in place for next year ( wish I had put this in place from day 1).
Good luck with choosing, we loved going to look around (can you do that now?).

we loved going to look around (can you do that now?).

@Itscoldouthere, open days are all 'virtual' at the moment, though most universities seem to be planning for real ones again in September/ October, conditions permitting. DS2 is 'visiting' Birmingham, Liverpool John Moores, Bristol and (iirc) York, Wednesday to Saturday this week. He 'went to' Leicester a couple of weeks ago.

Argh, we have done no open days. Between work, homeschooling and stubbornness on his part, we haven’t had a chance to get going on those.

We’re looking into whether he’s eligible for DSA as our situation is a bit complicated.

@Extracurricularfatigue applying for DSA was reasonably simple, especially for my ASD son as I had info from primary school and his DX.
The dyslexic one was more complicated as he didn’t have a recent DX and they initially asked for a recent report, but I phoned and spoke to someone and they accepted his older information.

Once they have accepted that you are eligible, you go to an assessment centre and someone assessed what you can get, I presume this will be done online now.
It was definately worth doing.

We’ll definitely do it if he qualifies. We may have some residency issues and I’m waiting to find out.

It’s mainly equipment and mentoring that’s offered/suggested, I don’t think it’s linked to where you live or how much grant you are eligible for, but I could be wrong.

It might be if you don’t live in the UK.

I see

Just to say, we've been really lucky. Our local services have a guy who knows a lot about autism and works with students to support them in applying to higher education. I didn't know he existed but we've been put in touch with him and he's just had a long chat with DS. They have made a plan to look at all the courses at the unis he knows are particularly effective at supporting students with autism, to see if we can strike lucky with a combination of the right course and place. Feels like a positive start.