Preparing Students with Disabilities for Successful College Transition

What You Need To Know About the Laws, Accommodations, Support Levels, Documentation, and the Admissions Process

Do You Really Know What Students with Disabilities
Can Expect in College?


You've found a lot of information online. What I can tell you is that much of it is missing nuance or is flatly wrong. Here are some examples:

Myth: IEPs or 504 Plans “travel” (or “transfer”) to college 

Fact: Neither kind of plan is valid after high school graduation.   

Myth: Colleges must provide the same accommodations students received in high school 

Fact: Colleges make their own decisions about accommodations; they’re not bound by what students previously received. 

Myth: Students with learning disabilities must have testing that was completed within the last three years in order to be approved for accommodations at college.

Fact: While this is true at some colleges, many colleges accept older documentation. Students have to check the requirements at the college they'll attend.


Get the facts from Elizabeth C. Hamblet, the college transition expert

Hamblet has spent over 25 years working in college disability services offices - not advising from the outside, but working within the system. She’s the one reviewing students’ documentation, checking that it meets the university’s requirements and supports each student’s requests as she recommends what accommodations should be approved.  

Hamblet stays active in her professional community. She reads the research to stay current with policies and practices nationwide. She knows how the system works and where families often get caught off guard. Her work helps them tackle feelings of overwhelm and navigates them to a place of understanding and efficacy. 

What You Do Now Matters:
Setting Up Your Student for College Success  

  • You've advocated tirelessly to get your student assessed and identified and you make sure they get certain supports. 
  • You keep in close contact with the school. 
  • You provide a lot of support at home.

But the college environment is different. Your student will need to advocate for themselves. They'll need to self-manage and take responsibility for parts of the college disability accommodations process. You can't do it for them.

If you don't start factoring in these changes into the transition planning you're doing now, you're losing precious time to prepare your student for a smooth and successful college transition. Watch now so you can make productive use of your student's remaining time in high school.

What You'll  Learn in the Course
  • Whether all colleges have to provide disability accommodations
  • Crucial information about college disability services offices and availability of accommodations at colleges across the country 
  • Categories of accommodations colleges don't have to provide
  • What happens if students wait to request accommodations at college
  • What disability-related information will be on admissions-related documents (or not)
  • The three levels of support available for students with disabilities and how to decide which one students need
*Get $5 off. Subscribe to my twice-monthly newsletter here and receive the coupon code.

COURSE WEBINAR

 $14.95*

What's included?

  • 1 hour video on preparing students for successful college transition
  • Handouts from the video to download

Watch a brief video sample

What else you'll learn

What laws are in place at the college level and what they mean for what college do (and don't) have to do for students

Academic accommodations commonly approved (and one important one that isn't, even though many students get it in high school)

How students get access to accommodations at college and what they have to do throughout their education

What documentation is commonly required when students request accommodations

What part disability plays (or doesn't) in the admissions process

What items should be in their "transition packet"

Worried you don't know as much as you should about the accommodations available at college?

This webinar will answer all of your questions.

Find out if your student has to give up accommodations if they attend a highly-selective school.

Learn whether private colleges  provide more or better accommodations than public ones.

Discover which accommodations are offered at college and which ones aren’t.

Get $5 off. Subscribe to my twice-monthly newsletter here and receive the coupon code.

Elizabeth Hamblet

Elizabeth C. Hamblet has worked both ends of the college transition. She began her career as a high school special education teacher and then began working at the college level in the late 1990s. She is now at her third university, where she helps students with time management, organization, reading, and study skills.

In 2008, Hamblet began offering programs to families and professionals on transition to college for students with disabilities, speaking locally and at national conferences. In addition to being a requested presenter, she is also a contributing writer for Disability Compliance for Higher Education, a journal for higher education disability professionals. Her work has also appeared in the Journal of College Admission, Teaching Exceptional Children, ADDitude Magazine, Attention, Raising Teens, and Career Development for Exceptional Individuals, and on platforms like Understood.org and ADDitudemag.com.

Hamblet is the author of From High School to College: Steps to Success for Students with Disabilities, published by the Council for Exceptional Children, and a laminated guide on college transition, available from National Professional Resources. The newest edition of her book will be out mid-2022.

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