Your experience in college brings up some interesting points for further discussion. I think that most attempts at “accommodation” are, well, sorry, can’t figure out another word to use, bullshit. They are the absolute minimum, and in your case and mine, obviously inadequate. Just making us take “remedial” courses does not solve our problems. This becomes a matter of pedagogy, (the methods used to teach and what needs to be taught), not just “extra time” “less distractions” etc. We get a bit o lip service and are then forced to continue to compete.
What would a fair, equitable and effective curriculum look like, that wouldn’t exclude us from entire fields of study?
I had a miserable time all the way up through grad school, and I should never have gone all the way through the process of getting a grad degree from a crappy state school, which is all I could get into because of my (surprise!) terrible math scores, even though I had been practicing and being coached for the test for 2 years prior to my taking the GREs.
Anyway, these “accommodations” are not the answer, IMHO.
As for me: Undergrad: University of Louisville, KY (fucking disaster), Antioch College (Yellow Springs, OH), which was an interesting school, now totally defunct, that had a system in which you took classes one semester and then went on an “internship” doing work that ostensibly gave real life experience the next, and so on until graduation. Had way too few students on campus, which made things difficult socially, and ultimately I couldn’t afford it, particularly because even by that time it was increasingly difficult to find internships that paid, driving me further into debt. Very unfortunate, because I had several teachers who treated me better than I’d ever been anywhere else, and were actually interested in my development as a biologist. Graduated from the Evergreen State College, which is an interesting place in that it’s almost tailor made for people with NVLD/DVSD/ that is you’re one of the mouthy ones like I am. Classes, outside of labs, tended towards a round table discussion format, meaning the more you contributed the better your evaluations (no grades at Evergreen, which can create other problems later on…). I actually WOULD consider this school if you have NVLD, but it’s become expensive for out of staters. I planted trees and otherwise worked like a mule for a year before applying in-state. Still went into debt.
Grad school (University of Oregon, Eugene, OR) was a total nightmare. I absolutely would NOT recommend this place unless things have radically changed and neurodivergency taken seriously.
But I’ve never had a professor challenge my accommodations and they have all been pretty nonchalant about it. I found my accommodations weren’t enough for me to succeed in math and chemistry, so I had to switch from a biology major to a bio minor. As someone with NVLD + dyscalculia, I don’t think I could succeed in chemistry (crazy amount of math involved) unless it were offered as a pass/fail class or for me to just be allowed to skip it, so maybe biology just wasn’t the right major for me.