I didn’t have to calculate the cost per meal at daughter’s school - they listed the price and it was $13 for a dinner (less for breakfast and lunch). Swipe your card and it took that much off it. They did have an unlimited plan (same price) and you could go into the dining hall to just get a drink or ice cream all day long, but if you were on the ‘swipe’ plan, that ice cream could cost you $10 if during the lunch time hours.
@PurpleTitan I understand how difficult it would be, especially because of the joint program, but here’s a kid who, at least according to the parent posting is, while not completely miserable, unhappy, unchallenged, and surround by inferior intellect (unless poor quality means something else). four years of college and four years of med school is a long time to be unhappy.
The OP posted a few times on the fin aid board really upset that aid money wouldn’t be forthcoming at top schools because they often don’t give merit and because of a choice to support other family members, so unless that situation has changed, transferring to a “better” school also may not be possible for financial reasons.
Upper level undergraduate courses and medical school will have different cohorts of other students compared to frosh level courses, which may be filled with pre-med wannabees, most of whom will be weeded out.
Indeed, @ordinarylives and @ucbalumnus.
Med school will not be filled with inferior intellects.
Undergrad may be, but again, nothing’s preventing the kid from engaging with profs, who will definitely be very smart and knowledgeable (the academic talent in the US runs very deep).
Personally, I’d relish the opportunity to chill for a few years and pursue hobbies I won’t have time for later because med school (and internship and residency with the competition to get in to the most desirable ones) is no joke anywhere. I bet, if the kid goes down the medicine path, he’ll look back fondly on his undergrad days when he had so much free time to kill.
To the OP:
If he’s at the school I’m thinking of, while getting in isn’t terribly difficult, the top quarter of the entering class are in the top 2 percentiles by standardized test scores so I find it hard to imagine that he wouldn’t be able to find intellectual peers anywhere.
Our youngest was “forced” to attend a OOS public flagship due to the school giving her a full tuition award plus room & board stipend.
She was very unhappy as she wanted to attend one of the unaffordable selective schools where she was granted admission.
The classes were dumb, the other students were stupid, she was never going to be happy there…and then things started to look a wee bit better the very end of freshman year.
She’s finishing up her junior year and is doing great.
Whew.
She does not complain about school much and I have next to zero interaction with it, so I don’t know what I don’t like about it. 
Just an anecdote: My son dropped out of a private LAC & worked a few years before returning to a public directional, where there was a shift in major, so as a junior transfer he had to take some intro level courses for his major. He happened to be taking the same basic course there as his younger sister was taking at the same time at an Ivy-affiliated LAC. They compared notes. My son voiced a complaint that while his sister was expected to read original source material for her class–something he would also knew he would have experienced at his first LAC as well – at his university the class was taught from a single textbook that wasn’t all that much more sophisticated or difficult than a high school textbook. At the time, I made one comment: “You’ve got the internet. What’s stopping you from reading all that stuff on your own?” (Basic answer was something along the lines that it was a lot easier to grip than to actually take initiative and do the work).
So fast forward a little bit: during my son’s spring semester he saw a bulletin about applying for a competitive & prestigious internship through his department, that would only be given to a single student. It was out of his comfort zone, but he went ahead & filled out the form, wrote an essay, lined up the LOR’s he needed. He ended up being the one student from his school who was selected, and spent his fall semester away from campus, at his school’s expense, pursuing that opportunity. That included a lot of college credit toward his major, but when he got back, he still needed to fill in the gaps for his degree with some intro-level course work. But he successfully petitioned for a waiver of the intro coursework along with a substitution of the more advanced coursework – basically citing his internship experience and pointing out that he would be able to bring more of benefit to the other students in the advanced-level seminars given his experience.
So part of the process, over time, is just one of figuring out how and where to stretch, and how to move beyond and outside the boundaries of the path the school has laid out Some of it is maturity, and some of it is the acquired experience after a person has spent more time at their school, and some of it is initiative.
I don’t know what the OP’s school is or what opportunities may or may not exist for him… but I do think that my answer to my son when he griped (“what’s stopping you?”) was the right one. Being smarter than all of one’s peers (if true)-- provides a competitive advantage, and a large university environment is full of opportunities --but they are not always well-publicized or easy to find. But if there is a med school there, then surely there must be faculty members doing research … so surely also opportunities to assist in that?
Anyway, if the OP’s son is truly unhappy with his choice, then transfer is a valid option to consider. But the college experience does evolve over time. I’m wondering if the OP’s son might also be questioning whether medical school is or should be in his future? If his career goals are shifting, then I can see him feeling stuck in a program he wouldn’t have selected if he could do it all over again.
Yes, how committed is he to medicine?
Great post, @calmom
What I don’t like (and I will name names): the food service situation at Penn is a mess. The biggest problem is that dining halls are open very limited hours. I contrast the situation with Vassar, where my son goes, and which uses the same food service provider. At Vassar, not only is the food better than at Penn, but the dining hall is open from early morning until late night and students get unlimited “swipes.” Penn could have a couple of locations that are open extended hours, instead of shutting kids out (and closing on weekends, which many Penn dining halls do). Vassar charges less, too.
There are other things I don’t like, but I will save them for another time… 
He took MCAT and scored high enough for better medical schools. It was a huge surprise and we are weighing every possible option.
What I didn’t like about my college: (I prefer not to name it as #4 might affect its federal funding in some manner)
- Too rural
- Too small (just 2200 to 2300 students)
- Lack of Southern girls
- Lack of recognition of Willie Nelson as a deity.
@twinsmama - same situation at my daughter’s school, previously cloaked in anonymity, which I will also name, the University of Cincinnati. Only one dining hall open on the weekends for limited hours, and it’s even more limited on game days.
I once asked food service why, and they said the kids never use the dining halls much on the weekends (but some report lines at the one that is open, ironically the one furthest from the freshman dorms). I asked them, nicely, how they would know this if they didn’t at least keep more than one open and get some fresh data.
They never emailed back, lol.
I thought of another one for Kiddo #1’s school - dorms close for Thanksgiving and Spring Break and you can’t get back in until after noon on Sunday before classes start. This makes it really difficult for those who have to fly to/from campus to time it just right and often means having to buy more expensive tickets. DH went to a small state school and I went to a private university and neither one closed over those breaks so we were quite surprised by this policy. Had never even thought to ask about it while touring.
@NaariyalAmma It was just a bad fit for him. I think he picked it because they gave him the most in merit $, but he probably would have been happier elsewhere. Or not. He struggles with depression anyway, so he might have had a rough time wherever he ended up.
That suggests that he is already an upper level student, close to getting the streamlined admission to medical school. Seems like a waste to give that up to transfer for one year of possibly better undergrad experience, which probably will not be better due to spending it on a stressful and expensive medical school application process.