College Assistance Program

Services Provided

Tutoring

As members of CAP, students are entitled to a minimum of two hours of tutoring per week and are welcome to attend additional hours of tutoring depending on their needs during a given week. Tutoring sessions are one hour in length and are scheduled in advance with students’ input and around their school and work schedule.

All tutoring is performed by our staff of professional learning specialists. Students receive tutoring from the same learning specialist(s) each week so a productive learning relationship can be developed. All of CAP’s learning specialists are professionals with Master’s degrees in Education, Special Education or a content area; they all have experience working with students who have learning differences and are trained in how to help students learn how to learn.

Tutoring sessions are skill-based and designed to help students become independent of the program. Tutoring does focus on and use homework, papers, assignments and exams from the student’s courses, however, the goal of each tutoring session is to teach learning strategies that can be applied to any course or project. Skills that are often focused on include: writing and editing skills, notetaking, test preparation and test taking skills, reading comprehension and mathematics skills as well as time management and organization.

CAP is open from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Thursday and from 8:00am to 4:00pm on Fridays. Students can schedule their tutoring hours during any of those hours.

Advisement and Registration

Members of CAP are provided secondary advisement when choosing and registering for courses each semester. All students use their primary academic advisor to determine what courses are needed to complete core and major coursework before meeting with their secondary CAP advisor. Both the Director and Assistant Director serve as secondary advisors for CAP students.

During secondary advisement students can review their learning style, strengths and weaknesses to assist in making course selections. The secondary advisor works with students to generate a schedule that addresses time of day, number of courses each day and preferred lecture style. Ideally, students create a schedule that balances demanding courses in weak skill areas with courses that utilize a student’s strengths.

Students that meet with both their primary and secondary advisor in a timely fashion may take advantage of priority registration that is afforded to members of CAP. Students in CAP may register at least one day in advance of other students in their grade level. This is done to assist students in obtaining a well-designed course load.

Accommodations

The College Assistance Program manages the provision of documented accommodations for CAP students. What accommodations are provided is determined by program staff and finalized during the summer transition program through consultation with individual students. Accommodation decisions are made using students’ psychoeducational reports and documentation. Testing accommodations are provided by CAP staff and students are strongly encouraged to take their exams within the Program’s offices.