Granville Towers: Meal Plans? Isolation? Car?

Hi! I’ve been accepted at UNC and am trying to figure out where I would like to live in the fall.

I know Granville Towers are nice and have the benefit of allowing freshmen to park their car if they choose, but I’m a little confused about the Agora meal plans. How exactly do these work with UNC’s normal freshmen meal plans? I would want to be able to eat at Lenoir, Rams and all the other dining facilities on UNC to have a variety of options. I know you can get a dining flex (?) thing, but I worry that would still limit my dining variety and be more expensive to have these two meal plans. I also will hopefully have my financial aid cover a lot of that, so how does that work?

Also I don’t want to feel isolated from the rest of the freshmen. I love that Granville is so close to Franklin St but am still a little concerned about that.

Another question: is it easy to get to Raleigh or Durham via public transport in Chapel Hill (if I don’t have a car my freshman year)?

Thanks for any input! Sorry if it sounds like I’m overly concerned about food, but a girl’s gotta eat. A lot.

bumping- i’ve been wondering about isolation at granville as well

A couple of points:

First the meal plan is separate from the other university plans, so you can’t eat on your plan at LeNoir, Rams, etc. They are on separate plans.

Second, a minimum meal plan is required, even if you go Greek. I believe university housing can effectively not have a meal plan or the minimum is much lower if you have a Greek meal plan. Granville must have the 120 block, Greek or not.

Third, different people will give different views on isolation. I believe there are 800 Freshman students that can live in Granville. About 400 on the other North campus dorms and then around 3,000 on South campus. So, definitely more freshmen on South campus. Seems like a lot of people that live in Granville as Freshmen either know people that live or lived there and think its the place to be or plan to go Greek and Granville is closer.

Responding to this may be a little out of date … but here goes. I would be interested in feedback from anyone else who has chosen Granville Towers - the good, the bad, the rumored??

My son will start at UNC in the fall and has chosen to live in Granville. I don’t really know what motivated his decision but the cost was about the same so I let him make it. I’m worried about him being isolated from the rest of the freshmen but he is not concerned at all. He thinks there will be plenty of freshmen in Granville, thinks sharing a dorm with upperclassmen is a plus, and likes the North campus location.

He has opted for the smallest Agora dining plan (120 block meals - essentially 1 meal/day) at Granville. We plan to supplement that with a university meal plan - either the largest off-campus plan or the smallest on-campus plan (he’s still deciding). Descriptions of meal plans are on the university website and it says all plans are available to GT residents. The idea is to have pre-paid for 1 meal/day at his dorm and 1 meal/day on-campus so he has some flexibility to eat with friends who live in regular dorms. My calculations show splitting the meal plans this way doesn’t significantly impact the cost assuming you want 2 meals/day. If you want unlimited meals the math and options change. The big question - and cost impact - is guesstimating how many on-campus meals you will want in the cafeterias vs. flex dollars to use at the fast food places & coffee shops.

Car freshmen year … the cost of parking your car at Granville is $1000/year so that’s a no-go! Practically no freshmen have cars so I’m sure public transportation is available within campus and to nearby shopping, entertainment & airport/train stations. Upperclassmen friends don’t report problems getting around but I’m sure it will be an adjustment for him after having his own car - and going constantly - for the last 2 years.