[nabs-l] Taking classes with accommodations as a non-matriculating college student

Kaiti Shelton crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com
Fri Mar 24 05:13:39 UTC 2017


Hi all,

I'm in an interesting situation now, and am hoping to find others who
might have some more information or knowledge than I am finding.  I'm
graduating from my university this May, but I will be a class shy of
completing my psychology minor.  However, since I will not be
receiving my diploma right away, I can walk in the graduation
ceremony, take a summer class for a cheaper price at another
university, and transfer the credit back to my school and still
receive the minor on my diploma.  I've been  trying to get set up at
the other university near my home for a while now.  My plan is to take
a course online through one of the branch campuses, though I will take
a class in-person if I have to.

The university does not seem to know what to do with me, and I have
been getting conflicting answers to questions depending on who I ask.
I first spoke to Disability Services, and they did not want to discuss
specifics about accommodations until I was accepted to the university,
so I asked admissions what I should do and they said to go ahead and
apply.  However, I talked to another admissions counselor on the phone
earlier this week to fix a snag in my application process, and they
told me I should have not registered as a traditional student, but
should have completed a basic data form for non-matriculating students
instead.  Of course, this basic data form was not accessible, and now
I'm currently trying to work with the admissions office and disability
services to get them either to accept the word version of the PDF file
I created so I could independently fill in my answers on the computer,
or to provide me with an accessible format in which to complete the
form again.  I have been upfront with my plans to just take this one
class for now and transfer the credit back to my university with
disability services and admissions this entire time whenever I have
spoken to someone about my circumstances, so I'm now confused about
the best course of action to take.  I should hear from the college if
I'm accepted via my application some time tomorrow, but it seems the
issue is that disability services isn't used to accommodating
non-matriculating students for a class or two over the summer.  I also
don't want to mix records by having one person in admissions register
me as a non-matriculating student, and someone else in admissions
registering me as a psychology major transfer student as I was told to
put myself down for on the application.  I could see that situation
being very confusing for all involved.

I should note that in addition to this university being cheaper than
my college I'm attending now, my university isn't even offering the
courses that would fit my last remaining requirement this summer.
This process has been going on for several weeks, and I'm starting to
become concerned about getting materials on time because the buck is
being continually passed around.  I'm also not used to the
communication style this university seems to have, as I keep being
reminded that they're a very decentralized campus when I have
expressed my frustration over getting the run around or going in
circles to get the accommodations I need, which in itself is
frustrating as that isn't an excuse for not working with a student to
accommodate for one class, or an entire degree program... sighted
students take one summer class to do exactly what I'm trying to do all
the time.  At the school I chose to attend the campus is smaller, but
record-keeping across departments and offices also seems to be more
consistent and disability services is very responsive to student needs
and requests, so I'm trying to remember that every campus is different
as well.

Has anyone else navigated setting up accommodations for taking summer
courses?  If so, what did you do to make it work?  Input is
apreciated.

-- 
Kaiti Shelton




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