Shocking number of elite college’s students claim ‘disability’ to avoid roommates

Many Stanford University students identify as disabled in order to access certain dormitory or academic accommodations, a junior at the elite university claims.

In an article published by The Times, Stanford student Elsa Johnson said she had assumed most disability accommodations were reserved for a small number of students who had serious disabilities such as epilepsy, anaphylactic allergies, or serious physical ailments. Johnson claimed she was surprised to learn many of these students received special accommodations for significantly less serious ailments.

Students received single dormitory apartments due to ADHD, anxiety, and even night terrors, according to Johnson. Some students simply claimed they get distracted easily and could not live with others, and still received dormitory accommodations.

Thirty-eight percent of Stanford undergrad students are registered as disabled by the university, and 24% of students received housing or academic accommodations for their disabilities in the fall 2025 quarter, The Atlantic reported in December 2025.

Johnson said among the most outlandish disability claims where students were able to get single-person dorms were a man who had to wear contacts at night and a woman who had a gluten intolerance.

At Brown and Harvard, 20% of undergrad students are registered disabled, while Amherst listed 34% of its student population as such, according to the Atlantic. However, research shows that only 3 to 4% of public two-year college students in America receive disability accommodations, the outlet reported.

Johnson wrote that one student told her that accommodations are so prevalent at Stanford it effectively exists to only punish honest students.

Johnson said she decided to apply for disability accommodation due to her endometriosis diagnosis, a condition that causes uterine cell growth outside of the womb, leading to extreme pain. She reported her condition to the Stanford Office of Accessible Education and explained her diagnosis and symptoms to an adviser over a Zoom call. Within 30 minutes, Johnson was registered as a student with a disability.

Johnson wrote in The Times that her accommodations were more than what she needed and claimed she could have any accommodation she wanted from the school if she had pushed the university harder for them.

Operation Varsity Blues, a 2019 Department of Justice investigation uncovering admissions fraud at elite universities, revealed parents would pay doctors to falsely diagnose their children with learning disabilities to get them academic accommodations. The fake diagnosis allowed their children to take the ACT and SAT tests alone while receiving extra time to take the tests.

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