Question about Duke’s meal plans. As a freshman, I’m signed up for Plan I ($2752 for Meal Plan and $527 for Food Points per semester). However, I’m not a big fan of Marketplace which is the primary location for the Meal Plan.
For sophomore year, are all the meal plans basically Food Points? For example, the Duke Dining web site shows Upperclass Plan E as $3383 for the Meal Plan. Plan E isn’t divided into a Meal Plan and Food Points.
So is the $3383 for Plan E all Food Points?
Thanks.
Best to call Duke Dining at 919-660-3900 and discuss your current vs. future options. When you move to West next year, you’ll eat at West Union which is not a standard dining hall (like marketplace). At West there are many different vendors from which to purchase meals. I would guess that the upperclassman meal plans fit that reality.I let my son figure it out and register for the plan he wanted. He is at FDOC and living on West now as a sophomore and I hope he’s happy with the food situation. Sure is nice at West Union.
So basically, if you’re economical you’ll be spending about $500 out of pocket per semester to cover the holes in the freshmen meal plan. And yeah, for sophomores and up, the Duke meal plan is great because you have all those food points to spend instead of being fixed to one dining hall the entire year. Duke should really change the freshmen meal plan because it sucks, but then again the university can change so many things that they never get around to fixing.
Idk why people dislike the marketplace so much 
It seems fine to me
Edit: although we’ve only been here for a week, to be fair
West Union has a bunch of stations where you can get different types of food: Indian, sandwiches, pizza, etc. so it’s definitely not like the standard dining hall fare.
The other meal plans are all food points…and I’m not sure why everyone is only mentioning WU. We have more options outside of it on campus, as well as the food trucks and Merchants on Points.
Freshman food points is definitely annoying, but Marketplace is pretty good overall. If I were you I would try to sneak in some tupperwares and smuggle out some of those delicious chicken strips or pizza lol (what I did hehe).
Let’s not forget Duke was ranked #1 in college dining by the Daily Meal for 2016, coinciding with the opening of the culinarily magnificent building that is our West Union :
https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/80-best-colleges-food-america-2016-0/slide-80
If you’re on East, I would check out Alpaca and Happy n Hale on 9th Street. Two restaurants that opened in the last 12 months that are absolutely fantastic. You can get a 1/2 chicken with two sides at Alpaca for less than $10. Simply amazing stuff.