Well, for whatever it's worth, I've encountered quite a number of people who openly sneered at the notion that even someone as profoundly impacted as my DD is "disabled" in any way.
The problem is that they have to WANT to do the right thing, and they have to be open to hearing it from a parent, and then maybe they can 'hear' that food anaphylaxis (or diabetes, or severe asthma, or a cardiac condition, or a seizure disorder, etc. etc.) is "really" a disability and requires them to make reasonable (or otherwise, in the event of K-12 ed) accommodations.
I don't predict that the program office will "get" that without going through the uni disability office, but there is NO WAY that the forms they have kids fill out are compliant, because the general rule (in my own experience) has been that you NEVER want the person making the hiring decisions to be aware of those things if it isn't a necessity during the interview/selection process. This isn't a situation where it IS necessary, and if the information is there, wow... how unfortunate that they are opening that door. Good thing that we aren't at all the kind of people to exploit that kind of loophole legally-- but they can bet that someone will eventually.
That's actually an honest appraisal of the practice, by the way. I am sort of like Don Quixote for this sort of thing at this point in my life. Because I know that for every applicant like my DD, there is only one parent like ME for about every 20 of those kids. Most parents just don't try to fight the system, even when it's wrong. I believe in paying it forward as a part of advocacy, though.
