College Living Experience
Monday, August 14th, 2006
College Living Experience is a post-secondary program that provides intensive assistance with academic, independent living and social skills to college students with special needs as they transition to become independent adults. CLE assists students throughout the college process, from registration to orientation to study to life-skills development. With centers in Austin, Denver and Ft. Lauderdale, CLE offers access to nearly 20 community colleges, universities and technical institutes that offer a wide variety of certificate and degree programs. For more information, visit www.cleinc.net.
National Admissions Office
800-486-5058
Contact: Jill Rickel: jrickel@cleinc.net
We’ve had several questions from those interested in our program about the populations we work with. Here is a sample: Autism/Aspergers, ADD/ADHD, Psychosocial-Maturational issues, nonverbal learning disorders. I hope that helps.
Is there any information as to how successful/unsuccessful this program has been for students who have participated in the program? Any complaints vs. praise?
I use to be a student and employee at CLE. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask them here.
Anonymous,
What is your honest assessment of the program? It is expensive and will financially wipe us out, but worth it to me if it is all it is said to be. Your thoughts please????
Dee
To anyone considering the CLE program,
Do not waste your money. They do not provide the services you pay for and simply cannot after laying off 20+ employees this year. They will promise you anything under the sun to get you in. Once in, your son or daughter is just another number. There only concern is what they refer to as “butts in seats”, not providing you with services. The company is in serious financial difficulties due to the mismanagement on ESA’s behalf since taking over the program in 2005. This once great program is now the laughing stock in the field. You cannot trust anyone from ESA to give you the truth since they lie to everyone including their employees. Do your research asking professionals who work in the field who are not affiliated with ESA.
Dee,
Despite CLE having problems it is still one of the better programs out there. There are not many programs similar to it. My recommendation would be to visit the program and meet with the staff. The staff at CLE are caring and compassionate.
Foremer Employee
Which CLE program were you an employee with and what professionals would you suggest a person contact about CLE
Meg
Meg,
I was an employee at the original location which was purchased by ESA in June 2005, The Davie, Florida location. You can ask any professional person who has dealt with CLE or recommends students for the program such as an Educational Consultant who has dealt with them before and after ESA took over.
Former Employee and Anonymous,
We are thinking about enrolling our son in Davie this August. We have visited the facility, spoke with students and staff and came away very favorably impressed. We are very concerned about the comments posted by former employee. Could we have more specific information on the negatives and positives.
Has anyone found good sources of funding to help offset the cost?
Lois, have you been able to speak with the parents of students there now and those who’ve recently completed the program?
The person who identifies him/herself as “former employee” brings up a good suggestion. There are many educational/placement consultants from your area or in Florida who can give you their perspective.
Good luck.
My daughter presently attends the Austin CLE program. She has gone further in college with the help of CLE than she would have without it. I have not had any problems with the staff at the Austin CLE office. If I have concerns or questions, I simply call or email the person I want to talk with. Yes, it is expensive, but when you consider the alternative, it is well worth it. Our daughter is maturing, learning and growing into an independent young adult with their help. This would not have occurred without CLE’s help. I have found DARS to be of help with college tuition, and books and supplies, and other things. Some disabilities are listed under Social Security, and you can also seek financial help there. Our daughter has gone to Austin CLE for 2 years, and we are very pleased with the results.
Dolly G.
I am the parent of a CLE Monterey student, who started in October 2008. We have been very impressed by the program as it is very well rounded. The people are kind and compassionate and my son is very happy there even though he is on the other side of the U.S. from us.
Our daughter (Aspie/NLD) enrolled at CLE Monterey in August and we are thrilled with her very rapid development in the program. She’s gotten good support from staff, including tutoring, independent living skills coaching, and social support with some sticky peer conflicts. She has a social life for the first time in her 22 years. She loves it there! As a psychologist and also someone with many years of administrative experience, I have a lot of respect for what these people are doing, and have been impressed by the staff they attract. It’s an extraordinarily complex challenge, and they are juggling a lot of very complicated personalities, and miraculously it usually seems to work pretty well.
We are from NY and our son is in his second year at CLE Denver. The program has given him the opportunity to develop independent living skills as well as attend college. He has matured significantly and now has a part time job along with going to school part time. He struggles socially and the staff have always been there to get him back on track when things get rough. Yes, it is expensive but we take each year one at a time and look at it as an investment in our son. The other programs we looked into were also expensive but they were primarily academic based with support and little in the way of independent living skills. This program works to develop both so the kids can use thier strengths and acomplishments to overcome the other difficulties they may have. The core staff at Denver has stayed consistant during our sons time there and they are great. We always feel they truely care for our son and want him to succeed.
Thank you Sanford, Dolly,Martha,Dan and Tim, for taking the time to respond. Your feedback reinforces our positive perception of the program after our visit to the Davie facility.
It would be wonderful if we can hear from a Davie parent.
My daughter suffered a TBI in 2006, just one month before high school graduation. She’s beautiful (inside & out) but moves slowly, as she has balance, speech, and vision issues. Her injury hasn’t affected her ability to learn but she needs a note taker and extra test time. She played 3 sports in high school, lettering as a freshman in softball. She wants to go to college. Her twin is in college, her brother is a senior at USD. It’s her turn. How do I send her anywhere? I can’t. Not unless there’s a program like CLE. All my kids planned to go to college. We are very interested in Monterey, as it is fairly close to us. Any info that would be helpful?
I was a student there for a couple of years and yeah I found the tutoring was extremely helpful but CLE caused harm with the students who feed off drama and the staff who baby certain students because they’re not mentally sound. Most of the staff had no clue what they were doing. It’s an expensive babysitter/ tutor some parents used to get rid of their kids. The staff were also a bunch of a drama queens.
All I have left to say is when it comes to helping kids better their futures, they should be more reliable. Especially since it’s so expensive not including living expenses and college.
My son will be attending Monterey in Jan. Any suggestions or advice?
Thank you
I used to go to the one there. If he doesn’t drive then he’ll need to pick up a bus pass for each month but usually there is a staff member there to help with that.
What I would recommend he does is go to as many social activities in the program as he can during the first couple of weeks. It’s usually a great way for new students to meet others and get to know them and when I was there I found going to Dine Around consistently made me a few friends here and there!
Ex CLE student,
So at which CLE location were you? Thanks for your tips.
I used to attend the Monterey branch.
Dear Ex CLE,
So, in what ways did the program assist you and in what ways do you think it could improve? It would be great to hear from you.
I think it assisted in me in having better social skills and making it easier to meet new people and make new friends that shared my problems . I still keep in touch with the current students there too. Like I said in my post above I found the Tutoring was pretty helpful and you definitely got plenty of academic support if you had any problems in your class.
Unfortunately I found that the negatives outweigh the postives. Again like I said in my previous post the Staff tend to make a big deal out of what is a relatively minor issue and it can be a recurring annoyance. The staff love to feed off drama especially with students who aren’t mentally there or have a roommate disagreement. There are a few staff members who know what they are doing so it should be noted that not all of them are like this.
I also dislike the fact that when I attended there that no one has the choice to make something such as shopping group optional especially if they have been proven to have stuck with the weekly Food budget and make healthy choices.
There should also be a more flexible schedule to students who really need support in areas such as Career guidance etc while the likes of ILS or Cooking are given less regard?. After all this is just as important in college as those two.
Anyway I don’t want to ramble on so I’ll just leave it there.
Thanks. How long did you stay, ex CLE?
Can you use what you learned at CLE in your present?
I stayed for a year
I think regarding some of the things such as Cooking and Cleaning these are skills that I can easily use in the future. However there really isn’t much else out out of what I’ve learned really.
Ugh I meant I stayed there for two years!
Ex CLE:
No worries on the one/two years. Time flew when you were having so much fun.
Would you say that getting more fluid with social reasoning/skills has been just as important as say, being organized?
Best to you for 2011.
Has anyone had any experience with the summer program? We are considering sending our daughter to the one in Denver. It is very expensve but it sounds like a good program.
Vance,
It’s good that you’re asking around.
What else are you planning to do to see if the CLE Summer program is a good fit for your daughter? Can you get over to the site in Denver and see close up?
Would love to hear about experience with the summer program in Denver. Didn’t see a response to the posting earlier. It is expensive, but would be worth it if successful.
Hi Donna. I’m guessing you mean that you haven’t seen any response to the comment which asked about the summer program in Denver.
Anyone have any first or second hand experience?
Hi,
My Daughter just got rejected from CLE Monterey. The whole process was a time consuming waste. After describing my daughters issues, we were encouraged to apply. We visited, had panel interview, more interviews etc. Were supposed to hear in a week, it took two. After much, BS, we were told that our daughter might “destabilize” if she attended. My daughter has social and maturation issues, as marketed on the website. Apparently, she is too immature??? for the program. Never actually being a student, I would have to consider the above posts, lots of lip service for a whole lot of money.
Sam,
What are her other options? Are you considering some other places?
My son is at the summer program in Denver. As of today, I would say that the program is a good fit for us. He is socializing more than he has or would if he were at home. He is in the program for careers and he wants to go to school there this fall. He is going to art classes as part of the summer program and his interest is in art (he is very good at drawing) and hopefully this will give him some idea on how to navigate a college campus. I have received two weekly reports and he has gained skills he will need when he is on his own. I know that not everyone can be happy about the program but so far we are very pleased. My son comes home on Saturday and we are very excited to have him home.
I also attended the program for a while and didn’t find it to my taste whatsoever. Whilst there were a few positives that I took out of it and will use for future benefit most of it was just overshadowed by the negatives. It’s quite unfortunate since this is a program that could definitely succeed with the right guidance and rules but it doesn’t seem likely to push in that direction. FWIW some of the students in the program were also disillusioned by it from the staff attitudes towards them to what was being taught to us.
Liz, glad your son’s off to a good start. We’d love to hear any updates from you that you’d be willing to share.
Dear Professional cynic,
Well, being a professional cynic I’d be surprised if you’d be writing something sentimental and positive.
Kidding aside, I wonder what was the process that you used to enroll in this program. How much involvement did you have in the selection process?
Plenty of involvement actually. I wanted to be a part of the program considering it looked like something that would be beneficial in a lot of ways but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way,
Professional cynic,
Thanks. So what were the “few positives” and what were the parts that were not for you?
Hi Sam,
I am afraid that we may experience similar that you have. Our son has been home-schooled since 5th grade. Can you please elaborate a bit more on your experiences?
Sanford, what are our other options (in case of people of Sam and I)?
Any insight would be helpful.
John,
Thanks for writing in. Are you saying that CLE told you your son is not a good fit for their program? If so, why do you think they feel that way? How did they make that assessment of your son?