<p>Princeton Review lists 20 schools as having bad food ("Is it food?"), among them:</p>
<p>Bard
Fordham
Guilford
Hiram
SUNY Albany
Whittier</p>
<p>I hadn't really considered this a factor, until I saw that a couple of schools on DD's list had also made PR's list (so a stop at the dining hall is a MUST if we visit). I'm sure there are plenty more - - are there any that come to mind as noteworthy?</p>
<p>Definitely check out the dorm food, it will tell you something about campus culture. I have done online checking of some college food service menus- that reveals something about what to expect also. I do know that UW-Madison Res Halls has excellent food and pay as you go ($0 minimum) a la carte pricing and anyone, not just residents, can dine there.</p>
<p>Are there huge differences in quality of food when the same food vendor is used? For example, Hiram Colllege apparently uses AVI Foodsystems and they seem to be the vendor (unless contracts expired) for the University of Michigan and Kenyon College (there are other schools that use them as well). I don't know which other schools are on the "is it food" list, but I am just wondering if the vendors provide fairly uniform quality of food between schools.</p>
<p>There can be huge differences even from one side of a campus to another.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to Cornell, which is known for the excellence of its food. However, that reputation is based primarily on the two large, relatively new dining halls in the mammoth freshman dorm area, which have top-notch food preparation facilities and enough space to offer an amazing variety of food. </p>
<p>In other parts of the campus, where the dining facilities are smaller and older, the quality and selection of food are not of the same caliber. The stuff is certainly still edible, but it's not as spectacular as what's offered in the freshman dorm neighborhood.</p>
<p>The food at U Mich is not bad. We were just there for campus day and ate at one of the "all you can eat" dining halls. We saw another newer facility that was more "station" oriented but the food we had was definitely edible and not prepared specially for visitors.</p>
<p>The quality of the food varies by how much they pay the vendor. Sodexo is another often used vendor, and I have seen big variation in the food quality from various Sodexo sites - my work cafeteria has one quality, and the food at U Pitt at Johnsontown for a conference I was at during the summer was terrible.</p>
<p>When I was at VTech for a summer program, the food was very, very good. UMass at Amherst, not so good.</p>
<p>Apparently, Penn's is nothing to write home about. And it's expensive and meal plan is mandatory for freshmen.
OTH the Claremont's get really good reviews. So do most of the women's colleges, I believe.</p>
<p>katytibbs has it pegged. Ad Aramark to the list of main campus purveyors. These programs offer a tiered system of contract plans to the institutions they service. What is available from one purveyor at school A is not what you might see from the same purveyor at school B.</p>
<p>So there are no "lunch ladies" back in the kitchen frying up the angel steak anymore?</p>
<p>A lot of kids at S's school complain about the lack of variety in the cafeteria. After living in Asia for years, S is thrilled that they always have fresh fruit. When I asked him about the complaints about the cafeteria, he says 'It's fine, did you forget that I grew up in a third world country?'</p>
<p>Of the schools we visited, Amherst and Wesleyan had the worst food. Bowdoin and Bates had the best.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt has great food IMO. </p>
<p>Rhodes has really average food. Like what you would expect to eat at a school. Not great but not bad.</p>
<p>The private vendors at Northeastern are enough to add the freshman ...my daughter likes the dining hall food , but gets a little bored by it too.
I love the proximity of the gym to the Au Bon Pain , Boloco, Qdoba and Wollaston's. Eat a muffin , run it off ! Actually I think it is nice to have he variety...as long as you don't make it a daily habit</p>
<p>The food thing is a pretty big issue for my D, who is in the process of deciding between three schools--two Big Ten U's & a small private. The reason it's huge is that she's changed her life through being on Weight Watchers the last 18 months & has lost 80 lbs. in the process. She's still the same smart, caring person as before, but has gained loads of confidence through the weight loss.</p>
<p>When we were checking these three colleges and others through the weeding-out process, although dorm cafeterias have come a long way since I attended some thirty years ago with their mall-style food courts, it's still amazing how carb-laden most of the offerings seem to be. Truly healthy ('point-savvy' in the world of Weight Watchers) choices are few & far between.</p>
<p>And from our travels, we found that (like Wis75 states) that UW-Madison is far & away the most forward-thinking in the healthy-food arena. Not only is it somewhat ethnic-based at times (e.g. vegan Indian as a special) but every food item served by the University can be accessed online for a complete nutritional report. Amazing, and perfect for students really watching what they eat.</p>
<p>I also find that while the food is ok, there is no variety. After eating the same food day after day, it gets really old. Freshman year my daughter though the food edible, but when the menu was the same every week, she got tired of it quickly.</p>
<p>Scripps had by far the best food I had ever tasted at a college. American U. won a recent award for best vegetarian food.</p>
<p>Scripps has always sounded like heaven - - great dorms, great weather, women's college with coed schools just acaross the street - - and now good food, too. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. </p>
<p>(Or the best of both worlds - - a little bit of Smith, a little bit of Barnard.)</p>
<p>Rice, Wash U and Vanderbilt have great food,especially in the new Commons dining hall for freshmen at Vandy. I have gone to lunch there as a medical center employee and it was extremely fresh and very good.
Aramark is pretty much universally bad and there contract at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim was cancelled prematurely due to customer complaints. Too bad that they are the vendor at UVA (at least during our spring break in 2008)</p>
<p>congrats jnm123 for your daughter's weight loss. I think my two would have been concerned with a school that had too much fried and unhealthy food too</p>