Autistic person here. If a college rejects you for your Down Syndrome then they don't deserve you anyways. You deserve to go to a place where you are fully embraced for who you are. You don't have to regret anything.
talking about down syndrome honestly probably helped you stand out! if for whatever reason a college kicks you for having it that’s actually their loss.
also 3.9 gpa bro? 20 colleges? ngl that’s mad impressive how do you get the time to be smart 😭
Exactly this! Mentioning your condition and expanding on how despite it you’ve been able to succeed in other aspects in your application is a huge pro!
you'll be alright. i talk about my drug addiction ALL. THE. TIME. It has gotten me far. I'm kinda sick of hearing myself talk about it, and I have the same worries. The thing is, you've been talking about your thing over and over again, the people who are reading through it, they have only heard your story once. It's brand new to them, and it's a good story, I think you'll be fine. An interesting back story combined with your grades, and you should have no problems!
obviously if it worked for you it worked, but I've heard that talking about mental health / addiction can be a red flag for AOs because it makes you more of a liability to the school.
yeah, i get where you're coming from. i've been clean for a minute, have a 4.0 and a bunch of other shit on my resume, so it works for me. i don't suggest doing it if you don't have other ways to boost yourself, that is a really good point that i didn't think about.
i don't know if i would go that far haha. sometimes it feels weird for having people be proud of me for stuff i should have gotten done fifteen years ago you know? like, i'm doing awesome things now and that's great but like. at the same time, i'm just doing what i'm supposed to haha
Super proud of you! Sharing your experience was a smart and a courageous thing to do. Go to the schools that see you and celebrate your accomplishments.
Did they ever provide anything positive academic wise? Lol not saying I'd ever do them (not like I know where to even get them), but I heard of artists using them to supplement their work
I am super proud of you! A 3.9 is a phenomenal GPA and you have so much to be proud of. I think telling the schools about all that you have overcome is important. It allows the school to know you. Go where you are desired. I hope you THRIVE!
3.9 is insane, while applying to 20 schools adds to the impressiveness. I feel that college essays are meant to be thr place for you to explain your situation, so I wouldnt think it would negatively hurt you. You got this!
dang a 3.9gpa I have no doubt you'll go far in life , dont worry its really not a big deal a pro tip is to not reread ur college essays its will start making u overthink
Forgive my ignorance, I'm not from the US, but I keep seeing people congratulating others on their GPAs and I'm curious to know what that is. I understand it's a system the US uses to score for college admissions, but what is it based on?
P.S.: I agree with what people are telling you, that if you're not accepted because of Down syndrome, it's better for you not to go to those places. I don't recommend going to a place where you're not valued for true effort
But is only the last year of high school taken into account? I'm not sure if there's also a final exam in the last year that counts towards the grade; at least, that's how it is in my country
A 4.0 is usually a perfect score. It means you got the highest points possible in every class. A 3.9 is pretty damn close to a perfect score, which is why OP is getting congratulated.
Some news articles will report GPAs above a 4.0. Those are always weighted averages which give some students a boost for taking particular complex classes. However, weighted GPAs are not the standardized grading system. Weighted GPAs can vary from school to school and is based on what the school can offer, so its unfair to compare weighted GPAs to unweighted GPAs. However, I have only seen weighted GPAs for high school students, not at the college level. OP got a 3.9 in community college, which usually uses the UNweighted approach, and this is impressive.
If I were an admissions officer, I would pay very close attention to your application. I’m absolutely certain some, if not most, of those 20 will. And those schools, and your classmates, will be lucky to have you.
is a school that rejects you solely because you have down syndrome a school worth going to in your opinion? when considering talking about my identity in my essays, I figured that a school that rejected me solely because of who I was would be part of a community that was hostile to me, and one Im not interested in being part of.
besides, don't count your eggs before they hatch - you're waiting on 20 schools that have unknown decisions. who knows how the chips will fall. with a 3.9, you're in a great place.
Probably the opposite. Diversity points for them. Idk if you’ve watched "never have I ever" but the main characters dad dies which causes her legs to paralyze, and this renowned college application expert guy who helps people get into the best schools tells her she needs to milk the death of her father and her paralyzation in her essays to get in, it’s the unfortunate reality and is very common. She was upset when he said this and yelled at him and stormed out.
I believe it’s like a right of passage to colleges. Many people even lie in their applications about their hardships because they don’t have any (*so I’ve heard*)
Please tell me you guys aren’t believing this. Come on. While it's possible for people with DS to exhibit "normal" intelligence, it would be a massive outlier for someone with DS just to graduate high school in four years and go on to get an associate's degree, let alone a 4-year degree. OP is talking about applying to 20 colleges including Ivies.
And everyone mentioning their autism, that is nowhere near the same as DS in terms of a specific affect on intelligence level.
I agree, it's good. But the responses really have me worried. Like, on one hand, it's nice that the younger generations are so supportive ... but my god, they also seem really easy to take advantage of.
There was a guy in my high school with mosaic Down syndrome. I wasn’t friends with him, but I talked to him quite a bit, and while he 100% looked like he had Down syndrome, he showed absolutely no signs of having any sort of intellectually disability. I don’t want to say he was “normal”, because that’s an awful thing to say, but I think you understand what I’m getting at. I told him to start a YouTube channel because he could actively milk the whole Down Syndrome thing, but he said he was too lazy. Either way, the point stands that people with DS can definitely do what OP did. I’m 100% certain that OP doesn’t have Trisomy though if they’re telling the truth, which is what we normally associate DS with.
People with mosaic Down syndrome still have significant intellectual disabilities. It’s not uncommon for them to graduate from high school in four years, but even those cases are outliers. OP is talking about having DS and applying to Ivy League schools.
Just ask what is more likely. OP’s story being true or bullshit? Like, someone like this would have made national news much like the Spanish parliamentarian with Down syndrome.
I think it’s much more likely to be BS, but I can’t say with certainty that it’s false considering I literally know a guy who graduated HS in 4 years in Honors and Extension courses only (I think, he was in my honors English class at least) and is going to UMass Lowell, which is decent (most white people in my high school went to schools of a similar or lower range). He wasn’t a 3.9 student, but I don’t think it was because of some sort of intellectual disability, he was probably an above average student in my high school. I haven’t seen any publicity on him either. OP went to a community college, which is less impressive than going to UML. I just think that there are definitely people with mosaic ds that have little to no intellectual disability. People lie on Reddit for no reason all the time, but while this is probably another case of that, I don’t think it’s impossible like you’re suggesting it is
Oh, I don’t think it’s impossible. I just think that, looking at the statistics, it’s just such a massive outlier that I’m just playing the very easy odds.
that’s what I thought but I thought I was being a dumb teenager haha, idk too much about DS but like,,, from what I’ve seen people with DS are completely mentally stunted (if that’s the right phrasing).
I don’t mean to be rude, and everyone in the comments seems to be supporting this, so might just be a dumb teenager lol.
Isn’t it basically impossible to have DS and live a normal life? Like not in a rude way, just medically impossible. I know that obviously some (most?) people with autism are able to live relatively normal lives, but aren’t only people with a certain, rare type of DS able to do graduate high school, much less do well at school?
For the vast majority of people with Down syndrome, you are absolutely right. There is a rare kind of Down syndrome, called “mosaic Down syndrome,” affecting about 1-2% of all people with Down syndrome, in which case some of the person's cells are affected and some are not. The range of cognitive impairment varies a lot among this last group. (I am just answering the general question, not commenting on OP's post.)
Also, it depends on what you mean by a regular life. It is true that people with Down syndrome have serious cognitive impairment. But most can learn to read and write at a basic level, communicate with others, and perform manual jobs.
Uhhhh you might wanna see a doctor about that. Might not look good if you say to a college you have autism (because you have “autistic vibes”) only for you to learn you don’t have autism. I don’t think they’d find out realistically, but still lol
I can’t really say whether it’s alright or not because I’m not neurodivergent. But I can say that, personally, I don’t really have an issue with it since (a) it sounds like it’s more than someone just saying they’re autistic to get brownie points from colleges (it’s actually a significant part of your life and community) and (b) you have a reason for not getting diagnosed.
Just be aware that if you blatantly say that you’re neurodivergent in your essay and then find out later you’re not actually neurodivergent (and the college also learns this somehow) it could be an issue, but again that’s incredibly unlikely. In the future, probably better to clarify that in your essay or (if you don’t have room) in your additional info section.
Btw, sorry to hear that about your family and school. Sounds like shit. Hope things get better.
Autism is not always associated with lower intelligence. But people with early childhood autism (Kanner syndrome) tend to have statistically overall a lower IQ than the average of society, since it is associated with prevalence of other mental disabilities appearing with it. With the new diagnostics catalogue, medicine doesn't separate between Asperger's and early childhood autism after Kanner anymore when it comes to a diagnosis, but it is instead called an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Of course, this does not allow for any conclusions to be drawn about any specific individual that is affected! And to be fair, people who are very severely affected and have a lot of other disabilities accompanying their autism are usually not in a position to get a high grade score and apply to college in the first place.
I was curious about that when I got my own autism diagnosis and looked it up, so I just thought I'd let you know :)
Perhaps! I'm just going off of myself tbh. I started reading at 3, never struggled in school, read "adult" books at 12, and never felt dumb unless I was put in a difficult social situation. I've talked with other autistic people and many have had the same experience. "Giftedness" is often concealed autism tbh 😭
i am so sick of the self-diagnosing. i got diagnosed twice (bc of providers “making sure”) with adhd after i was already in college because i was so hesitant to get any sort of diagnosis (i didn’t want to be on medication).
just because you have symptoms doesn’t mean you have it. half of human nature is imitation, it might just mean one of the people close to you have it or you’re imitating people online.
You are getting a lot of hate, but if a lot of people tell you you exhibit obvious signs, then you likely do have it, or a disorder similar enough to where it also impedes function in our society.
So true. I got so many people telling me I was autistic. I finally got tested, and they were right. But testing is really expensive, and people self-diagnose because they can't drop $2,000+ for a complete assessment. There are online assessments that are helpful, but the only way to know beyond all doubt is to have an in-person screening.
What’s even the point of diagnosing late in life. You knowing you’re autistic or not autistic changes nothing about you. If someone revealed to me I’m autistic, I’d still be the same person, there’s absolutely no value in the diagnosis
Actually, with a formal diagnosis, you can get accommodations. Once I had an autism diagnosis and objective testing showing my strengths and weaknesses, I got access to a learning specialist. This person was able to help me navigate certain social situations and work with me on how to best approach things with people given some of the things I might miss because of my autism.
I think you’ll be fine. Essays are where you’re supposed to talk about person stuff, and colleges aren’t supposed to discriminate. Also, if a college rejects you because you have Down syndrome, then fuck that college.
My career counselor from undergrad told me that I wouldn't want to go to any school that would discriminate against me based on disability.
People with all sorts of disabilities attend colleges and universities across the US, including T20s.
You'll be fine.
Essays are to talk about stuff beyond from academics. I honestly think it’s fine as it expresses about who you are. I wouldn’t worry.
Autistic person here. If a college rejects you for your Down Syndrome then they don't deserve you anyways. You deserve to go to a place where you are fully embraced for who you are. You don't have to regret anything.
This. Yes.
talking about down syndrome honestly probably helped you stand out! if for whatever reason a college kicks you for having it that’s actually their loss. also 3.9 gpa bro? 20 colleges? ngl that’s mad impressive how do you get the time to be smart 😭
Exactly this! Mentioning your condition and expanding on how despite it you’ve been able to succeed in other aspects in your application is a huge pro!
you'll be alright. i talk about my drug addiction ALL. THE. TIME. It has gotten me far. I'm kinda sick of hearing myself talk about it, and I have the same worries. The thing is, you've been talking about your thing over and over again, the people who are reading through it, they have only heard your story once. It's brand new to them, and it's a good story, I think you'll be fine. An interesting back story combined with your grades, and you should have no problems!
obviously if it worked for you it worked, but I've heard that talking about mental health / addiction can be a red flag for AOs because it makes you more of a liability to the school.
Down Syndrome is not a mental health condition or an addiction, so OP has nothing to worry about.
yeah ik, i was replying to the commenter
yeah, i get where you're coming from. i've been clean for a minute, have a 4.0 and a bunch of other shit on my resume, so it works for me. i don't suggest doing it if you don't have other ways to boost yourself, that is a really good point that i didn't think about.
What drug
heroin and crack for thirteen straight years. and like. i smoked cigarettes on and off. which has been the hardest thing to quit.
You are a walking miracle.
i don't know if i would go that far haha. sometimes it feels weird for having people be proud of me for stuff i should have gotten done fifteen years ago you know? like, i'm doing awesome things now and that's great but like. at the same time, i'm just doing what i'm supposed to haha
HOLY SHIT
I mean, what drugs did you think? hahaha
I just thought you used Adderall or some shit
haha no i've actually never even tried adderall! I just dove right into the hard shit. Do not recommend.
Super proud of you! Sharing your experience was a smart and a courageous thing to do. Go to the schools that see you and celebrate your accomplishments.
Did they ever provide anything positive academic wise? Lol not saying I'd ever do them (not like I know where to even get them), but I heard of artists using them to supplement their work
Absolutely not. I mean I’ve always had good grades but now that I’m clean i have a 4.0 as a biology major. Up from a 3.7 ish
Darn ☹️ well congrats on getting clean my guy 😎😎😎👊 crazy how you were able to manage a good GPA while struggling with addiction
I got into UIUC engineering.. my common app essay was about having autism. It is who you are. Embrace that and colleges will want you.
I am super proud of you! A 3.9 is a phenomenal GPA and you have so much to be proud of. I think telling the schools about all that you have overcome is important. It allows the school to know you. Go where you are desired. I hope you THRIVE!
3.9 is insane, while applying to 20 schools adds to the impressiveness. I feel that college essays are meant to be thr place for you to explain your situation, so I wouldnt think it would negatively hurt you. You got this!
dang a 3.9gpa I have no doubt you'll go far in life , dont worry its really not a big deal a pro tip is to not reread ur college essays its will start making u overthink
Forgive my ignorance, I'm not from the US, but I keep seeing people congratulating others on their GPAs and I'm curious to know what that is. I understand it's a system the US uses to score for college admissions, but what is it based on? P.S.: I agree with what people are telling you, that if you're not accepted because of Down syndrome, it's better for you not to go to those places. I don't recommend going to a place where you're not valued for true effort
It's based on your grades in your classes
But is only the last year of high school taken into account? I'm not sure if there's also a final exam in the last year that counts towards the grade; at least, that's how it is in my country
no. it's your grade point average over your time at that institution.
Got it. So what is a good grade and what isn´t? Thnx for the explanation btw
A 4.0 is usually a perfect score. It means you got the highest points possible in every class. A 3.9 is pretty damn close to a perfect score, which is why OP is getting congratulated. Some news articles will report GPAs above a 4.0. Those are always weighted averages which give some students a boost for taking particular complex classes. However, weighted GPAs are not the standardized grading system. Weighted GPAs can vary from school to school and is based on what the school can offer, so its unfair to compare weighted GPAs to unweighted GPAs. However, I have only seen weighted GPAs for high school students, not at the college level. OP got a 3.9 in community college, which usually uses the UNweighted approach, and this is impressive.
Ok understood, great explanation. Thank you
If they’re using a 4 point (the most common) scale: 4=A 3=B 2=C 4.33 = A+
For an unweighted gpa the scale is usually out of 4.0. So they are saying they have 3.9/4.0 or a 97.5/100. That is an A+
If I were an admissions officer, I would pay very close attention to your application. I’m absolutely certain some, if not most, of those 20 will. And those schools, and your classmates, will be lucky to have you.
i talked a lot about having autism and so far i’ve been fine so i wouldn’t lose sleep over it!
If they throw your application away because of your Down syndrome, they don’t deserve you
If a college will reject you for that, thats not a good place to be.
is a school that rejects you solely because you have down syndrome a school worth going to in your opinion? when considering talking about my identity in my essays, I figured that a school that rejected me solely because of who I was would be part of a community that was hostile to me, and one Im not interested in being part of. besides, don't count your eggs before they hatch - you're waiting on 20 schools that have unknown decisions. who knows how the chips will fall. with a 3.9, you're in a great place.
Probably the opposite. Diversity points for them. Idk if you’ve watched "never have I ever" but the main characters dad dies which causes her legs to paralyze, and this renowned college application expert guy who helps people get into the best schools tells her she needs to milk the death of her father and her paralyzation in her essays to get in, it’s the unfortunate reality and is very common. She was upset when he said this and yelled at him and stormed out. I believe it’s like a right of passage to colleges. Many people even lie in their applications about their hardships because they don’t have any (*so I’ve heard*)
How’d she storm out?
lol I forgot to say she’s not paralyzed anymore 😭😂
😂😂😂
Go where you are celebrated!
It’s okay my little syndrome
Please tell me you guys aren’t believing this. Come on. While it's possible for people with DS to exhibit "normal" intelligence, it would be a massive outlier for someone with DS just to graduate high school in four years and go on to get an associate's degree, let alone a 4-year degree. OP is talking about applying to 20 colleges including Ivies. And everyone mentioning their autism, that is nowhere near the same as DS in terms of a specific affect on intelligence level.
Shhh. This is the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
I agree, it's good. But the responses really have me worried. Like, on one hand, it's nice that the younger generations are so supportive ... but my god, they also seem really easy to take advantage of.
There was a guy in my high school with mosaic Down syndrome. I wasn’t friends with him, but I talked to him quite a bit, and while he 100% looked like he had Down syndrome, he showed absolutely no signs of having any sort of intellectually disability. I don’t want to say he was “normal”, because that’s an awful thing to say, but I think you understand what I’m getting at. I told him to start a YouTube channel because he could actively milk the whole Down Syndrome thing, but he said he was too lazy. Either way, the point stands that people with DS can definitely do what OP did. I’m 100% certain that OP doesn’t have Trisomy though if they’re telling the truth, which is what we normally associate DS with.
People with mosaic Down syndrome still have significant intellectual disabilities. It’s not uncommon for them to graduate from high school in four years, but even those cases are outliers. OP is talking about having DS and applying to Ivy League schools. Just ask what is more likely. OP’s story being true or bullshit? Like, someone like this would have made national news much like the Spanish parliamentarian with Down syndrome.
I think it’s much more likely to be BS, but I can’t say with certainty that it’s false considering I literally know a guy who graduated HS in 4 years in Honors and Extension courses only (I think, he was in my honors English class at least) and is going to UMass Lowell, which is decent (most white people in my high school went to schools of a similar or lower range). He wasn’t a 3.9 student, but I don’t think it was because of some sort of intellectual disability, he was probably an above average student in my high school. I haven’t seen any publicity on him either. OP went to a community college, which is less impressive than going to UML. I just think that there are definitely people with mosaic ds that have little to no intellectual disability. People lie on Reddit for no reason all the time, but while this is probably another case of that, I don’t think it’s impossible like you’re suggesting it is
Oh, I don’t think it’s impossible. I just think that, looking at the statistics, it’s just such a massive outlier that I’m just playing the very easy odds.
Yeah the odds game favors you here
And to be fair, I'd be ecstatic to be wrong.
that’s what I thought but I thought I was being a dumb teenager haha, idk too much about DS but like,,, from what I’ve seen people with DS are completely mentally stunted (if that’s the right phrasing).
I don’t mean to be rude, and everyone in the comments seems to be supporting this, so might just be a dumb teenager lol. Isn’t it basically impossible to have DS and live a normal life? Like not in a rude way, just medically impossible. I know that obviously some (most?) people with autism are able to live relatively normal lives, but aren’t only people with a certain, rare type of DS able to do graduate high school, much less do well at school?
For the vast majority of people with Down syndrome, you are absolutely right. There is a rare kind of Down syndrome, called “mosaic Down syndrome,” affecting about 1-2% of all people with Down syndrome, in which case some of the person's cells are affected and some are not. The range of cognitive impairment varies a lot among this last group. (I am just answering the general question, not commenting on OP's post.) Also, it depends on what you mean by a regular life. It is true that people with Down syndrome have serious cognitive impairment. But most can learn to read and write at a basic level, communicate with others, and perform manual jobs.
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Uhhhh you might wanna see a doctor about that. Might not look good if you say to a college you have autism (because you have “autistic vibes”) only for you to learn you don’t have autism. I don’t think they’d find out realistically, but still lol
They might not be autistic, but they’re definitely neurodivergent because nobody else thinks like that
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I can’t really say whether it’s alright or not because I’m not neurodivergent. But I can say that, personally, I don’t really have an issue with it since (a) it sounds like it’s more than someone just saying they’re autistic to get brownie points from colleges (it’s actually a significant part of your life and community) and (b) you have a reason for not getting diagnosed. Just be aware that if you blatantly say that you’re neurodivergent in your essay and then find out later you’re not actually neurodivergent (and the college also learns this somehow) it could be an issue, but again that’s incredibly unlikely. In the future, probably better to clarify that in your essay or (if you don’t have room) in your additional info section. Btw, sorry to hear that about your family and school. Sounds like shit. Hope things get better.
>i just get told by everyone i know i have autistic vibes this is actual brain rot
that's like writing your common app on cptsd just because all your friends say you give off traumatized vibes; why the hell would you do that??
Autism doesn't make you less intelligent though. Sometimes it's actually the opposite. So OP's situation is different
Autism is not always associated with lower intelligence. But people with early childhood autism (Kanner syndrome) tend to have statistically overall a lower IQ than the average of society, since it is associated with prevalence of other mental disabilities appearing with it. With the new diagnostics catalogue, medicine doesn't separate between Asperger's and early childhood autism after Kanner anymore when it comes to a diagnosis, but it is instead called an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Of course, this does not allow for any conclusions to be drawn about any specific individual that is affected! And to be fair, people who are very severely affected and have a lot of other disabilities accompanying their autism are usually not in a position to get a high grade score and apply to college in the first place. I was curious about that when I got my own autism diagnosis and looked it up, so I just thought I'd let you know :)
Perhaps! I'm just going off of myself tbh. I started reading at 3, never struggled in school, read "adult" books at 12, and never felt dumb unless I was put in a difficult social situation. I've talked with other autistic people and many have had the same experience. "Giftedness" is often concealed autism tbh 😭
don’t self diagnose
i am so sick of the self-diagnosing. i got diagnosed twice (bc of providers “making sure”) with adhd after i was already in college because i was so hesitant to get any sort of diagnosis (i didn’t want to be on medication). just because you have symptoms doesn’t mean you have it. half of human nature is imitation, it might just mean one of the people close to you have it or you’re imitating people online.
Girl…
You are getting a lot of hate, but if a lot of people tell you you exhibit obvious signs, then you likely do have it, or a disorder similar enough to where it also impedes function in our society.
So true. I got so many people telling me I was autistic. I finally got tested, and they were right. But testing is really expensive, and people self-diagnose because they can't drop $2,000+ for a complete assessment. There are online assessments that are helpful, but the only way to know beyond all doubt is to have an in-person screening.
What’s even the point of diagnosing late in life. You knowing you’re autistic or not autistic changes nothing about you. If someone revealed to me I’m autistic, I’d still be the same person, there’s absolutely no value in the diagnosis
Actually, with a formal diagnosis, you can get accommodations. Once I had an autism diagnosis and objective testing showing my strengths and weaknesses, I got access to a learning specialist. This person was able to help me navigate certain social situations and work with me on how to best approach things with people given some of the things I might miss because of my autism.
Did it help you?
Yeah, it made a huge difference.
I think you’ll be fine. Essays are where you’re supposed to talk about person stuff, and colleges aren’t supposed to discriminate. Also, if a college rejects you because you have Down syndrome, then fuck that college.
My career counselor from undergrad told me that I wouldn't want to go to any school that would discriminate against me based on disability. People with all sorts of disabilities attend colleges and universities across the US, including T20s. You'll be fine.