Beyond Akeela: college readiness for neurodivergent teens, on a real campus

A two-and-a-half-week residential pre-college programme for neurodivergent high-school teens, delivered on a college campus and organised in three progressive stages so that each year group gets age-appropriate responsibility. It is not academic: there are no classes and no grades. Skill development runs through four strands — social connection, executive functioning, college and career readiness, and self-advocacy — and is practised in real situations: teens keep their own schedules, choose their own activities, cook some of their own meals and work at community service placements. Curriculum sessions cover subjects such as healthy relationships, college social life, résumé building, admissions conversations, professionalism, nutrition and budgeting. Each teen has goal conversations with a trusted staff member, including self-assessments.

Tuition covers all regularly scheduled trips, including transportation and admission fees. Teens live on the Curry College campus in a dormitory the programme has to itself and spend most of the day with the campers and staff in their own age group, coming together for meals, evening meetings and some activities. Staff are kept at roughly a three-to-one staff-to-camper ratio, and a staff member is responsible for health concerns and for distributing medication. After the first few days, parents can schedule a phone call with their teen. Rising seniors and post-graduates may add a one-credit Experiential Learning Lab course taken through Curry College.

Beyond Akeela has exclusive use of 886 Dormitory Hall on the Curry College campus: a traditional residence hall with double-occupancy rooms, lounge space and shared bathrooms on each floor, with central air conditioning throughout the building. Living on a working college campus is part of the point — the dormitory is the simulated independent environment in which the programme's executive-function and self-advocacy work is practised.

Meals are part of the curriculum rather than only catering: teens plan a menu, go grocery shopping, work to a budget and prepare some of their dinners themselves, practising cooperation and teamwork along the way. Meals are also one of the points in the day when the whole programme comes together rather than splitting into age groups.

Afternoon trips to places such as Franklin Park Zoo, the New England Aquarium, Coolidge Corner and Newbury Street, plus local hikes. Boston day trips including the Museum of Science, Fenway tours, the Freedom Trail and Faneuil Hall. An Adventure Trip Day with a choice of a self-guided ropes course, river kayaking or an amusement park, and a Hike Day with summit or nature-walk options. College visits to campuses of different types. Camp-style activity choices including art, drama, music, sports, yoga and mindfulness and Dungeons & Dragons, and evening activities such as trivia, games nights, movie nights, mini-golf and bowling. Health and wellness time for walking, swimming or sport. Community service at the same site around seven times during the session.

The programme runs on the campus of Curry College, 1071 Blue Hill Avenue, Milton, Massachusetts — a wooded campus bordering the Blue Hills Reservation, about 30 minutes from Boston, which gives the programme both a secluded feel and easy access to the city for day trips, community service and internship sites. On campus the teens use their own residence hall with its lounges, the lake for swimming, the sports dome the college calls the Bubble, and playing fields. Curry also runs its own PAL Program, which provides social and executive-function support to neurodivergent students.

Beyond Akeela is for teens who are getting ready to leave home and want to arrive at college able to manage themselves. It keeps the community of a summer camp — a peer group that shares a summer, evening meetings, hobby nights, a camper party — and puts a college-readiness curriculum inside it. Everything is customised to the social goals each teen is working on, and advisors stay with them through the programme. Teens spend their days mostly with their own age group, so the experience changes as they move up through the three stages of the programme.