This dissertation explores the meaning-making of neurodivergent students as they consider their lived experiences navigating their first year of college in an ableist post-secondary environment. This study sought to understand the challenges they faced academically, personally, and interpersonally and how their experiences with campus programs, policies, procedures, faculty, staff, and peers helped or hindered their success. Additionally, I explored the salience and intersection of multiple identities with disability and how students perceive the impact on their first-year experience. Using a critical qualitative approach, this study was influenced by the field of disability studies and three models of disability that provide a critical framework: the social model, the critical theory of disability or DisCrit, and the social justice model. Primarily grounded in the social justice model, which focuses on pervasiveness of ableism that permeates throughout society, existing on our campuses in structures, policies, and procedures, this study seeks to foreground the voices of students who have been marginalized, bringing to light their experiences to serve as counternarratives, highlighting the danger of doing things in typical ways. Drawing from data collected through narrative inquiry, conducting 22 semi-structured interviews with 11 participants who self-identified as neurodivergent, I examined what students expected their first year of college to be like and what informed those expectations, what students perceived as positively and negatively contributing to their success in the first year, the salience of their disability identity and the impact of holding more than one minoritized identity on their first year experience, and the degree to which students felt a sense of belonging on campus and what contributed to that positively or negatively. My findings reveal that cultural norms surrounding what college should be like reproduced in media and film, and experiences shared by family members influenced participants' expectations of college. Previous experiences in the K-12 system, whether they involved stigma, stereotyping and bullying, or failure to secure adequate administrative support led participants to desire more positive experiences in college. Participants expected that college (1) will be much better socially than high school; (2) will afford them more freedom and independence; and (3) will be the same or more challenging academically than high school. Participants discussed factors that influenced their first-year experience across five domains: (1) the interpersonal; (2) the intrapersonal; (3) the curricular; (4) the co-curricular; and (5) the institutional or structural. Factors that contributed to success included having positive and supportive relationships with family, developing meaningful relationships with peers, possessing self-advocacy and efficacy skills, engaging in the co-curricular, supportive faculty and classroom design, enrolling in interesting and relevant coursework, and registering with disability services. Factors that hindered success included less supportive family relationships, feelings of fear, anxiety, and inability to ask for help, large classes sizes, impersonal academic environments with ableist classroom design, a neurotypical approach to student engagement, and structural ableism evident in university processes and practices. Participants often minimized, made light of, or spoke negatively about having a disability, reflecting an internalization of the deficit-oriented paradigm surrounding disability. The impact of previous stigma and traumatic experiences led to participants being anxious and hyper-aware of their actions and behaviors, often masking their disability with others. Participants rejected the notion of being defined by their disability, seen as “only” disabled and often highlighted other aspects of their identity that were more salient to them, making meaningful connections with peers based on those identities. Recommendations included infusing anti ableist practices by (1) engaging in regular assessment of the campus climate and disabled student experience; (2) intentionally designing the onboarding and training of faculty and staff; (3) providing proactive support for the college transition; (4) offering intentional and proactive coaching and advising; (5) infusing universal design in co-curricular opportunities for engagement; (6) considering the physical structure of the campus; (6) developing intuitive systems and accessible campus resources; (7) utilizing universal design for learning principles in classroom design; (8) and offering an intersectional approach to support, de-siloing support services. Future scholarship should take an intersectional approach; the study illustrates a need for more research related to the intersection of gender and disability, particularly the experiences of neurodiverse trans students. Future research should explore the salience of disability identity for those with invisible disabilities; the impact of social exclusion for disabled students; and the significance of a diagnosis for neurodiverse students and the subsequent timing of the diagnosis and the impact on student’s self-advocacy and efficacy skills, and persistence. Likewise, a longitudinal approach, following neurodivergent students throughout their college experience could illustrate further identifying factors that help or hinder their pathway to graduation. Students described factors that contributed to their success like learning communities, smaller class size, and course design. Further research could explore specifically the impact of such programs on neurodiverse student success and belonging. Likewise, more research could be conducted into the relationship between advising and neurodivergent student success and persistence as well as the role of mental health and proactive approaches to supporting disabled students' health and wellbeing in college. From a systemic view, research could be conducted with institutions who intentionally seek to be anti-ableist. Focusing on specific aspects of the university that contribute to the student experience may illustrate practices that are universally designed in a manner that elevates the student experience for all students.