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

[sarah at sarahblakelarose.com]

Hi, Kaiti.

You should admit as a non-matriculating student, not at a transfer student, as you will not be transferring any courses to this university as a psych major. It is still the university's responsibility to accommodate you. You are still taking their courses and paying them money, regardless of whether you continue to do so. The ADA requires programs of study to be accessible. It says nothing about matriculating vs. non-matriculating students.

-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kaiti Shelton via NABS-L
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 1:14 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>
Subject: [nabs-l] Taking classes with accommodations as a non-matriculating college student

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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