Mayuyou, I am assuming your daughter knows all the ingredients that actually contain corn (sometimes maltodextrin, for instance).
Yes @LilyMoon we met with the director of dining services at UCONN when my daughter moved in and they introduced her to the manager of the dining hall that is nut free. He also gave my daughter his card should she have any difficulties or questions for him. Menus are posted on line as well so she knows what she can safely eat at all the dining halls.
@compmom of course, thank you, I always tell her to check every unknown products on the Internet.
@toomanyteens we never assume malice-ignorance accounts for so much of humanityâs atrocious behavior. The girl simply didnât believe that my D really had an issue, and was more concerned about what she wanted than what D needed. Ignorant and selfish. It happens. Weâre hoping as D heads off to college this year that she can vet some potential roommates to see if she can get an allergy-friendly suite.
For those who use an epipen I just wanted to let you know that the Auvi-q is back and you may be able to get it for free.
http://www.wptv.com/news/health/auvi-q-epipen-alternative-hits-the-market
Tons of great advice here already. Just to add, from personal experience: My current college kid is a vegetarian and has nut allergies. Her school did a good dog-and-pony show about accommodating food preferences/allergies, but (surprise) the reality simply didnât match up with what was promised. (Welcome to the south, where every vegetable touches a pork product!) I have both gently and not-so-gently encouraged her to advocate for herself â ask to meet with the head of Food Services, for example â but she is reluctant to do so. I find this frustrating as we are paying thousands for food sheâs not eating, but thereâs only so much I can force her to do in that respect.
Our solutions thus far (and next year when sheâs not a freshman and not required to have a meal plan, we will probably revamp some):
- She has a larger-than-a-cube dorm fridge, and we were delighted to discover you can now buy a dorm fridge with a separate-door freezer compartment. This allows her to buy things like Morningstar Farms and Boca frozen entrees she can microwave in the room, plus she can keep high-protein snacks like hummus, yogurt, and cheese on hand.
- She likes smoothies, so I got her a tiny Hamilton Beach single-serve blender and some protein powder. She can grab fruit at the dining hall and make her own smoothies.
- I donât love how much microwaved mac-and-cheese and sugary oatmeal she eats, but theyâre decent on protein, easy to make, and shelf-stable.
- Most school meal plans have some sort of associated Dining Dollars which can be used at nearby fast food places, and in her case sheâs able to eat at a local burrito place (where theyâre good about allergens) pretty regularly using the money already in her account.
- Her dorm has a kitchen, and there are a few things sheâs willing to cook that go beyond tiny-fridge-and-microwave, so we make sure she has the tools to do that.
- I periodically send her a case of GoPicnic meals, which are like Lunchables but organic and allergen-aware. (She likes the sunbutter crackers and hummus ones, and each box also has a fruit product and other munchies, and everything is individually packaged. The hummus ones have a little nut mix, I think, but itâs not touching anything else and she just gives it to a non-allergic pal.) In a pinch she can grab one of those and sit in the dining hall with her friends.
Unless it would be life-threatening to live in the dorms (and I know thatâs a possibility in some cases), Iâd recommend against an apartment as a freshman. I think what they gain from the âweâre all in this togetherâ atmosphere and RAs on hand outweighs the annoyances about food. Just my opinion, of course.
You might also want to check the health centers at schools also. Had one at small LAC and one at large university. Large had more resources for allergy but strangely, had no night or weekend hours for health center. D1 small LAC basically handled allergies on a case by case basis (never needed it but I am celiac so always have antenna up to the issue) but they had a health center open 24 hours with nurse on duty overnight so always accessible. Depending on problem, that might be a deal breaker as well.
@yankeeinGA - my kids used to eat the sugary oatmeal too, but have found a much healthier alternative. Try getting her a small crock pot - she can cook steel-cut oatmeal in it which is much healthier than the regular kind. 1 part steel cut oatmeal to 4 parts water, add a bit of brown sugar, cinnamon, cut up peeled apples or anything else she wants to add. Turn it on before she goes to bed, cook on low setting overnight, and it is ready when she wakes up in the morning!
Some schools will allow students to decline a meal plan if allergies or celiac make participation difficult or dangerous. Registering with the disabilities office and having an MD request this as an accommodation might help. Of course then the student misses out on the social aspects of the meal plan. We have never taken that route, but someone mentioned the problem of meal plans upthread.
My D17 has Celiac, and @compmom on college tours she saw quite a few LACs with wonderful accommodations, like Wesleyan had a GF section of the cafeteria. Elsewhere, her college tour guide where she ended up going had Celiac too, and I suspect that was a significant part of why she applied to that school ED!
One of mine has anaphylaxis with lobster, crab and shrimp. Another one of mine has celiac, type 1 diabetes (and seizure disorder). With the exception of some very small schools in the arts, we did not run into any schools that werenât accommodating and helpful. Of course GF is fashionable now so the main challenge is making sure that personnel understand the difference between that kind of GF and celiac.
My kids did NOT choose schools on this basis. The whole point of the Americans with Disabilities Act is that anyone can go anywhere (where they get in) and disabilities should not factor into choices. In theory, that is! But we felt the only way to make theory become practice was to proceed as if the ideal was reality.
But then again, tour guides have an awful lot of influence on kids in many areas : )
My daughter is much stricter with her celiac now. During college she had so many health challenges that I think celiac fell by the wayside at times. Not that she ever intended to eat gluten, but as you know, bad things happen without intense scrutiny and self-advocacy.
@LYLMom that sounds delicious⊠to ME. 
Said kid is also picky (because the allergies and vegetarianism arenât enoughâŠ) and wonât touch steel cut oats. (Oh, well. More for me!)
Just a quick recommendation â we just came back from a college tour to NY and New England, mostly tech schools. Due to sonâs food allergies, we made a point of eating in a dining hall at each school, and contacted admissions offices ahead of time to see if they could arrange a meeting with food staff. The absolute winner was RPI. The dietitian absolutely knew her stuff, and connected with my son in a way that made him feel like he would readily reach out and talk to her if he needed something. They have a dedicated room off of a main dining hall where allergy friendly food is stored and can be prepared (they have multiple cooking appliances in there with different labels - gluten free, kosher, etc). Itâs only accessible by students whose campus IDs have been authorized. The dietitian said if there is a particular food my son likes that fits their criteria, she will get it and stock it in that room. We were super impressed. Liked the school otherwise too.
@david6k I think a lot of schools do have the accommodations you speak of. The tour guides may not know all the details, but at many schools, if you have a food allergy you register with health services, meet with a dietician/food services and then get service like what you describe at RPI. Once enrolled, you usually arenât left to forage the salad bar on your own.
@wisteria100 Well, we went to five campuses in four days. All the schools had accommodations, but the ease with which we could use them varied quite a lot. For example, at one school, they had big signs on all the food serving stations in the dining hall â âplease inform us if you have a food allergy.â So my son went to one of the serving stations and talked to the person serving. The serverâs English was poor, my son wasnât able to make himself understood, and there wasnât anyone else at the station, so my son gave up on that food and went to try and find something else. And that schoolâs admissions office didnât arrange for us to talk to anyone, they just replied to my sonâs inquiry by directing us to this dining hall, which was supposed to be the allergy-friendly one. If they have a dedicated room for students with allergies, no one told us and we didnât see it.
As part of an ongoing cycle of renovations, Penn State UP added an allergen-free/kosher dining cafe to their largest dining commons. Itâs called Pure, and just opened this semester. Food is prepared right there, in separate kitchen, prep area. Itâs supervised by a rabbi (apologies, I am not Jewish but I know there is a term for him) who determines that everything is proper.
all the other dining commons continue to have a gluten-free station (really just a microwave and fridge) for celiac students â self service with limited choices. Several of the little convenience cafes stock gf frozen food, and the commonsâ managers are very receptive to feedback.
You need to get your child classified as disabled with disabilty services. With that, accommodations can be put in place and depending on the situation exempted from the meal plan and/or certain housing situations.
david6k, I hope you or your child donât let any of those visiting experiences dissuade him from applying. Sometimes it takes a little while to set up a real meeting with dining services, and there are probably resources not obvious with a quick visit to the dining hall (for instance, one of mine w/allergies was given a book with recipes and the personal email of the head chef; another one of mine was given a number to call for advance preparation of meals for celiacs etc.). And admissions may not be in the know. Once admitted and serious about going, our experience has been that schools are very eager to please and accommodate. (And yes register with the Office of Disabilities.)
@compmom @scubadive I originally posted to share a particularly positive story (RPI) from our visits, not to suggest that other schools canât do well if given a chance.
Post 52 was positive, post 54 was not, which is fine. I just wanted to make the point that once admitted, it is easier to evaluate these things and visiting before admission can be misleading. 3,600 people have read this thread and I had them in mind.