<p>Hello!</p>
<p>I was wondering if someone can explain the meal plan and campus card? I chose the silver plan, but just wanted to know where on campus the meal card allows me to eat? And, what is the benefit of the campus card for freshmen?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>The meal points will allow you to eat at anywhere on campus (except for Einstein bagels in Olin and food from the bookstore). At the start of the semester you are given a semester’s worth of meal points. Each dollar spent is one point subtracted (it’s a declining balance system like a debit card). If you run out of meal points, you can use your campus card account (see below), cash, and credit cards at some locations. When spring semester starts you are given another semester’s worth of meal points. At the end of the academic school year (in May) you lose all of your meal points (you’ll see people with hundreds of points at the end of the year buying things in bulk). </p>
<p>Your student ID has a strip that allows it to function as a debit card for meal points (from your meal plan) and for campus card funds from your campus card account. </p>
<p>Both function in the same way.</p>
<p>Campus card account has it uses. Unlike the meal plan, you add funds to it online through WebStac and the funds are added instantly to your card and you are billed for it on your student bill. When your meal plan runs out of points, you can use your campus card to pay for meals. You can also use your campus card at all laundry machines (no quarters to carry around!), you can use it to buy things from the bookstore (I use it all the time when I need to buy small items such as pens, paper, printer ink, etc.), you can use it to buy food from Einstein bagels at Olin, to donate money to student groups, to print from certain on campus locations if you run out of your free number of prints, etc. It can also be used at student run businesses like Wash U Wash and Wydown Water, and also at many vending machines on campus. It’s essentially a debit card for all things Wash U. Unlike meal points, your campus card account rolls over from year to year and only expires when you graduate from Wash U. </p>
<p>Friends and family members can also add money to your campus card account as a gift.</p>
<p>There are always a couple places on the Loop that will accept the campus card for payment, with more to come soon.</p>
<p>Say you want to buy something to eat on campus. It takes X dollars. You swipe with your campus card and X points are deducted from your meal points. You don’t have to pay for sales tax on food items when using your meal plan / campus card account.</p>
<p>[Dining</a> Services | Washington University in St. Louis](<a href=“http://diningservices.wustl.edu/]Dining”>http://diningservices.wustl.edu/)
[Campus</a> Card - Washington University in St. Louis](<a href=“http://card.wustl.edu/]Campus”>http://card.wustl.edu/)</p>
<p>Should explain everything. It’s a really simple system compared to other colleges when you have meal times and you get X meals per week. You can eat anywhere you want, only pay for what you order, etc. </p>
<p>If you have any more questions feel free to ask, but it’s straightforward.</p>
<p>1- Also of note that a lot of people don’t realize: the Law School and the cart in Brown don’t take meal points either.</p>
<p>2- using campus card for food is tax free (ie once you run out of meal points), whereas using cash for food is not tax free.</p>
<p>3- you should change your plan size (yes, you can do that through webstac right now). Even though they’ve finally leveled out the plans, you could still be wasting money if you don’t use all of your meal points. If you ever happen to run out of meal points on the smallest size (freshman have to get “bronze”?), you can just add more. no harm.</p>
<p>4- I’ll repeat. Seriously. Change your meal plan. Most freshmen don’t even use all of the bronze-level plan. Getting a silver is a huge waste of money.</p>
<p>marcdvl pretty much summed everything else up.</p>
<p>The overhead is the same for all the plans now, so there’s absolutely no reason to get a higher plan, since you can add campus card at a dollar a point.</p>
<p>If I didn’t make that clear, you should get the smallest, cheapest meal plan option.</p>
<p>(DJ, I’m not following you? It has ALWAYS been the better idea to get the smallest plan. Changing how the overhead worked didn’t change anything. It just made things like off-campus plans more expensive. grrrrr)</p>
<p>I could have sworn it used to be a slightly smaller premium to get a bigger plan. As it stands now, I don’t know why Wash U even bothers with the bigger plans…</p>
<p>^1 point has always been cheaper with smaller meal plan rather than large until now</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the feedback. While sending in my final decision to enroll in WashU, the silver plan was the smallest plan I was offered. :)</p>
<p>Also freshmen can’t get bronze plan.</p>
<p><a href=“http://diningservices.wustl.edu/Documents/DiningGuide2011.pdf[/url]”>http://diningservices.wustl.edu/Documents/DiningGuide2011.pdf</a></p>
<p>Dining Services website also mentions an overall price increase for the year due to global increase of costs</p>
<p>Okay, one more question…the meal/campus/student ID card. Are these all the same things? Or are there different cards?</p>
<p>I apologize if this seems like a dumb question.</p>
<p>Totally my b. I don’t like how they renamed the plans. It’s confusing.</p>
<p>Phasmatis- yup. all same card. it’s also the card you’ll use to swipe into buildings.</p>
<p>Thanks again…can’t wait to arrive on campus!</p>