<p>I'm not gonna lie, I eat A LOT, being active in sports and the like. I was wondering, for freshman is there an unlimited meal plan?</p>
<p>buffet style food at the freshman “marketplace”, and 330-430$ in food points to be spent at on campus restaurants that you can refill without even telling your parents (automatically charges your bursars account)</p>
<p>The freshman dining area, the “marketplace”, is all-you-can eat buffet style, during breakfast and dinner hours. You have 12 swipes you can use, 5 for breakfast, and 7 for dinners. During lunch however, you’ll have to use your meal points to get food. If you ever run out of food points, you can always add more later on as the semester progresses.</p>
<p>However, you or your parents will have to pay for the additional food points. It will be posted on our semester tuition/room and board bill (which is what Ballinallday means by Bursar).</p>
<p>no unlimited swipes?</p>
<p>Now the real question: How good is the food?</p>
<p>My interviewer told me it’s extremely good, better than most schools.</p>
<p>You get 5 breakfast swipes to the marketplace (Monday to Friday). If you miss breakfast at the marketplace, you get a $4 credit that you can use at the Great Hall (West Campus) for breakfast or a $4 credit for lunch at the marketplace. You can only use the $4 credit on the same day and you have to tell the cashier that you missed breakfast (I did the mistake of never telling a few times, and I had to pay extra).</p>
<p>You also get 7 dinner/brunch swipes (Monday to Sunday). Brunches are only on the weekends (there’s no breakfast during weekends), and dinner is held throughout the week.</p>
<p>To fill in the rest of your meals, you’re supposed to use food points. This is where your food plan varies from other students. Every student has the same 5-7 swipes every week, but how many food points you have depends on the plan you choose.</p>
<p>Now about the actual quality of marketplace food…it’s decent. But it gets tired really fast. The food’s the same average quality every single day, but ig it is better than most colleges.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>I heard someone mention there were fast food chains on campus. Do they do food points?</p>
<p>How does financial aid factor into the dining plan? Is it part of the EFC, grant,work study, or is it a seperate fee?</p>
<p>Sent from my HTC Vision using CC App</p>
<p>Yes, all the fast food chains on campus (e.g. McDonald’s, Subway, Chick-fil-A, and Panda Express) all accept food points. Some of the off-campus delivery places, such as Dominoes, also accept food points too (this program is called Merchants on Points… you can google it and find out more).</p>
<p>Concerning Marketplace (freshman dining hall) food…</p>
<p>Many people complain that the food is mediocre and not that great, but I disagree. If you’re willing to try new things, you’ll enjoy every meal. </p>
<p>Breakfast:
There’s the typical bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, cereal, bagels, and fruit that’s simple and good. There’s also an omelet station and yogurt station (my favorite) which on weekends (during brunch) includes a mixture of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and/or strawberries . On weekdays I typically have scrambled eggs, vegan sausage (because it’s delicious, not because I’m vegan), and a bowl of yogurt with strawberries and granola. I love my breakfasts 
</p>
<p>Lunch:
There’re numerous options for lunch, and it’s not hard to find something that suits what you want. I usually just grab a bagel from Alpine. </p>
<p>Dinner:
The options vary from day to day, but typically there’s a pasta station (decent), pizza, asian food (not popular), a taco/gyro/hamburger station, salad bar, and a central station that changes every day (usually good). The vegetables are diverse (collard greens, braised kale, sweet potatoes, spinach) and often locally grown. If nothing appeals to you, there’s always cereal and the option to make a PBJ. I usually have about 6 different things on my plate at dinner. </p>
<p>You use meal swipes to pay for breakfast, dinner, and brunch. You have 5 swipes for a possible 5 breakfasts (Mon-Fri); and on days you skip breakfast, you receive a $4 credit to use at the Marketplace for lunch, which is a la carte. For dinner/brunch you have 7 swipes to use on a possible 9 meals (7 dinners and 2 brunches which are only on Sat/Sun), so you’ll need to make up 2 meals per week elsewhere. It seems complicated, but you’ll pick it up quickly once you get here.</p>
<p>The only difference between the freshman meal plan options are the number of food points initially on your account. I recommend buying the cheapest meal plan and adding food points as needed. This way, you won’t end up with unused food points at the end of the year. Food points roll over from semester to semester, but not from year to year.</p>
<p>I know this was a more comprehensive response than you were probably looking for, but hopefully it’ll help someone :)</p>
<p>Unused food points at the end of the year should still garner some sort of refund (or at least they used to). When I had a meal plan it was 100% of the first $100 and 50% of anything above that.</p>
<p>Unused food points are now not refunded and disappear at the end of the year.
Yes, it sucks.</p>
<p>Damn, I guess they weren’t kidding when they said that the dining plans aren’t making money. Oh well, given how few food points are in the freshmen plans last I checked, it’s not like you’ll have any left at the end of the year anyway. If you do, then a few trips to WaDuke should take care of that, or I usually indulged my tastes for calamari :D</p>
<p>^Filet mignon, mmmmm…</p>