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Does having epilepsy benefit a first-year college applicant in the admission process?

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 02:40

Hello all,

I am currently a Junior in high school. I make good grades, have a rigorous secondary school record, and have what I believe to be great extracurricular activities, qualities, and hobbies. I have a passion for learning, and love science. As an aspiring engineer, I would like to attend a university that has an excellent School of Engineering.

I have been looking at schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Certainly a school such as MIT is very competitive in the admission process, and every hopeful student wants to use what they can to increase their chances of acceptance.

So, I would like to know...Does having epilepsy (a medical disability) benefit/increase your chances of being admitted to a college in any way? (The 504 Plan I have at my high school will show up on my application/transcript information to give evidence of the condition.)

 

Thank you.

Comments

Re: Does having epilepsy benefit a first-year college

Submitted by 3Hours2Live on Sun, 2011-01-30 - 06:06
Hi BrcBurner, MANY PEOPLE WIN THE LOTTERY!!!! But, MANY MANY MANY MORE PEOPLE LOSE THE LOTTERY! Viewing the flawed "Punch-Board Utility" argument that a person down to their last dollar should buy a Lottery Ticket, because nothing of real value can be bought with just one dollar, but if they win a $$$MILLION$$$, there is no arguing with such success, didn't side-track Eliot Ness, the Untouchable, at least until he shaded J. Edgar Hoover. There's a major difference between being pessimistic and being somewhat slightly cynical of "the happiness circle" cure all. I didn't get any scholarships for university in California, and the one I got for university in New Mexico was weighted down with so many requirements and restrictions, that it may have saved money, but it was too expensive in terms of everything else. Special programs in public schools tend to create unexpected problems too, as when they lost my special ed records, and the special "help" stopped, my GPA went up to "Dean's Scholar" levels. It seems Justice Clarence Thomas makes observations about the untoward effects of discrimination laws, but I'm more concerned (and experienced) with the laws not being enforced, nor followed, as to me, it appears the untoward effects would otherwise thus be corrected also. While I verified many instances of the word "epilepsy" directly resulting in prejudice in private practices, the EEOC, federal administrative law judges, federal courts, and various State and County agencies gave me many more examples, and nearly a ton of paper evidence. The EEOC itself will assume that anybody claiming epilepsy cannot have a passing, and definitely not an outstanding, job or academic score. The Federal District Courts will assume that anybody listed as disabled with epilepsy is necessarily not otherwise qualified, and the court of appeals will back them up till the U.S. Supreme Court finally considers such a scenario a slight possibility, using such prejudicial language about disabilities as to make the court sound like the entire bench is filled with intellectual refugees from a William Faulkner novel. Then, of course, until the new ADAAA, epilepsy could always be held not to be any handicap or disability at all, except then, otherwise, a total disability. Following the nonsense logic of SC "Project Hope", people without epilepsy "are jealous of people with epilepsy", and acts based on jealously are not acts in violation of the new, and improved, ADAAA. So if epilepsy offers any benefit whatsoever, that benefit can be used to deny any access to any major life activity. The world olympics has already ignited similar disputes with many other vast arrays of impairments limiting overly gifted athletes to the special olympics. It seems the PR will be "just keep it quite" and "seperate, but equal", and it might just go away. But, a student better be ready to get a court order to get in the university shower/pool, once labeled with epilepsy. Despite their intense insults, the U.S. Supreme Court finally did clarify that being disabled to the level of being disabled as defined, and used, by the SSI and SSDI definitions, did not necessarily preclude being "otherwise qualified" under the Rehab Act and the ADA, but it still placed all the legal burdens on the "protected" disabled person in answering to the court's own level of intense prejudice. Then, many special programs (that are in fact, parts of the Social-Contract), even limit the amount of "Intellectual Wealth" a disabled person is allowed to possess before rendering themselves "not special enough to meet the expected low value" of a protected disabled person. It's almost like a disabled person with a right to benefits under the Social-Contract, will be punished for publishing a book about anything that might have enough value to have market value in the great land of intellectual (and even great ideas just maybe stupid too, for that matter(just ask about "if" protected book rights for O.J.)) freedom, even for people with epilepsy. Working hard enough, a person will even alienate their rights to their parents' Social Security Insurance protection for disabled children and related education funds. Tadzio

Re: Does having epilepsy benefit a first-year college

Submitted by brcburner on Sun, 2011-01-30 - 08:36
Look. Whether it be pessimism or cynacism, I'm here to SUPPORT, not have a fuckin debate. Got it? If you're here to inform this person about the question on the board, then stop addressing shit to me. If you're here to go on a soapbox, then either I misconstrued the whole objective of this website, or you should take it to the appropriate place. I don't have time for this shit...I have better things to do. To those of you who are pursuing college, I wish you the best of luck and encourage you to make loads of phone calls to the schools that you're interested in. The worst thing that can happen is you end up in the same position you're in right now; you won't be losing anything. And don't worry---college is not nearly as difficult as it sounds. You'll do great, disability or no disability. "...they can call me crazy if I fail all the chance that I need is one-in-a-million and they can call me brilliant if I succeed..." --A. DiFranco

Re: Does having epilepsy benefit a first-year college

Submitted by 3Hours2Live on Sun, 2011-01-30 - 19:24
Greetings BrcBurner, As many posts involving such rich aroma quickly dissappear, I'll note your ***blank*** it, and ***bleep*** it, advice, here. I'll also note that my "Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms & Prepositions" edited by James C. Fernald (1947) was indeed psychic about the word "cynical" being grouped with the word "captious" on page 109 (all this is TLE academic relevant stuff for brownie points in the Ivy Leagues): http://books.google.com/books?id=XJoaAAAAMAAJ&q=captious+Shakespeare+cynical&dq=captious+Shakespeare+cynical&hl=en&ei=9fZFTeTYGYyCsQPKxtX_Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA Most of my "support" maybe could be briefly summarized under "beware of epileptic scholarships hauntings from the past", and here at epilepsy-dot-com, search the blogs for "graduate student scholarships" and "graduate scholarships", as many of them seem to illustrate the Geschwind "Syndrome" and the often trap of "easy-out" disability scholarships leading to a blunt "successful frustration" with graduate school prejudice involving epilepsy (and many other impairments, such as autism and Asperger's, and the "idiot-savant" loophole). Being an outstanding scholar with epilepsy will result in a plethora of prejudicial roadblocks under the guise of accommodations that are best approached very cautiously, and if utilized, utilized with great weighted care. University education is good in itself, but in terms of a career, a serious epilepsy blocked by societal prejudice, will result in an Ivy Tower Intellectual limited to Supplemental Security Income from a regarded necessarily severe disability, that is limited to both the bottom 3% of society or to the top 3%, in being under-qualified with mutually exclusive skills & abilities, or over-qualified with the same skills & abilities, but only very rare token careers with truly gainful employment. I reponded to one blog from a person who made it through graduate school, and in pursuit of her doctorate, and while she appeared more wordy than I am, she mentioned the amazingly large number of paradoxical misleading dead-ends of "accommodations" to handicaps within the universities. If I can find her blog again, I'll try to list it, and everyone who wants, can try to torch their Funk & Wagnalls there. Tadzio

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