<p>As a prefrosh, I have my reservations about the food at MIT. I heard from my friend that your fee for board and food is separate from what you pay when you actually eat in the dining halls. For example, I might pay x amount of dollars as part of my tuition for food but for every piece of bread or fruit or meat or veggies I decide I want, I have to pay an additional amount. Is this true for all dining halls or just a certain few? If the latter is the case, which dhalls are these? And also, just how does the food system work anyways? And dorm placement?</p>
<p>food here is a lot cheaper than anywhere else.</p>
<p>In most cases, you don't actually pay a fee for your food -- you just put in the amount of money that you want to put in, and then you use that money to purchase food. You're not required to put any money into a meal plan; if you want, you could just pay for all your food with a bank debit card or with cash. It's completely up to you and completely equivalent.</p>
<p>If you end up living in a dorm with a dining hall, you will have to pay to join a "preferred</a> dining" program. The cost is $250 per semester. In return, you get 50% off all the food you buy at your dorm's dining hall. Those of you who are quick with math will realize that in order to break even in a preferred dining plan, you basically have to eat at the dining hall every night.</p>
<p>If you live in a dorm with a preferred dining plan, you're free to not eat at the dining hall every night. You'll just effectively lose your $250.</p>
<p>Regarding how food works generally -- I wrote about that yesterday in my</a> blog:
[quote]
What's the deal with the meal plan?
You or someone with money puts money into your TechCash</a> account, which is linked from your MIT ID card. When you want to buy some food somewhere</a> on or around campus, you get your card swiped and the amount is subtracted from your balance. You want food, you pay money. It's kind of like real life. ;) You can add money at any time, so don't worry too much about estimating the exact amount you'll need per semester -- if you pay too much fall semester, it will just stay in your account for use later.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I wrote about dorm choice [url=<a href="http://mollie.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/04/home_on_the_ran.html%5Dhere%5B/url">http://mollie.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/04/home_on_the_ran.html]here[/url</a>]. Relevantly:
[quote]
Late May/early June -- receive a booklet with descriptions of each dorm written by residents, and a CD with resident-made videos. (Last year's videos can be found here.) Rank each dorm and cultural house, 1 through 15, and send in the form to be run in the housing lottery. The form is usually due around the third week of June.</p>
<p>Late July -- Housing lottery runs. Freshmen are assigned a temporary room The room is almost always one of their top two choices, sometimes third choice -- last year, 70% of students got their first choice in the summer lottery and 26% got their second choice.</p>
<p>August 26 or 27 -- Arrive at MIT and put stuff in temporary room. Don't unpack. (A good strategy is to pack a suitcase with a week's worth of stuff in it, and live out of that during orientation.) Run around and check out all the dorms and eat free food, decide if you want to enter the readjustment lottery to switch dorms. You always have the option to stay in your temp dorm if you want, although you shouldn't succumb to laziness and not explore just because you sorta like your temp dorm.</p>
<p>August, a few days after that -- The readjustment lottery is run for people who have decided to switch dorms. Final dorm assignments go out the day after the lottery is run.</p>
<p>August, probably the next day -- Each dorm does in-house rush, where students go around and meet people from all the floors/entries/whatever within the dorm and eat free food. Students rank floors and yet another lottery is run.</p>
<p>Now we're probably into September -- Final room assignments go out. Students (with help from upperclassman muscle) move into their final room assignments. Everybody gets psyched.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>you can also go to any other dorm's dining hall, or pritchett (so you're not limited to only your own) and the preferred dining will still apply.</p>
<p>so the preferred dining is different from the techcash card? and it does not apply to food trucks and stuff around campus?</p>
<p>No, preferred dining is a program only for the residential dining halls, which are only open for dinner (and late night snacking).</p>
<p>The TechCash account linked to your MIT ID card is what you'd use for everything, including preferred dining. (Well, not the food trucks -- they only take cash. Like, real cash.) It's easiest to think of TechCash as a debit card that is accepted at most places on campus, and think of preferred dining as some sort of discount you get at a particular store while using your debit card. You don't get a separate card if you join the preferred dining program.</p>
<p>If you can use Tech Cash at the Dining Halls and under the House Dining Membership, what is the reason for the Dining Dollars account? Just to keep those charges separate?</p>
<p>FYI - the program fee for House Dining Membership is now $300 per semester.</p>
<p>Someone said a few months ago that the Dining Dollars account is to make parents feel better, so they feel assured their money is going to food and not to something else that could be bought with Tech Cash. (I think I have that right...)</p>
<p>The Dining Dollars program is, indeed, a way to allow parents to control their child's spending. If a parent puts $1000 on Tech Cash, you can use it to buy books or sweatshirts or magazines at the Coop. If a parent puts $1000 on Dining Dollars, you can only use it to buy food at participating locations.</p>
<p>In summary, the Dining Dollars program is dumb; use Tech Cash.</p>