Meal Plan?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>Well, after getting the thick envelope today, I read that freshmen are charged a rate that includes both housing and a meal plan. So I'm going to assume that there's only one meal plan?</p>

<p>Can anyone tell me how the plan works? It probably won't make a difference since theres no alternative, but I'm curious to know.</p>

<p>Also, in general, how's the food at Chicago? Are there any nifty things where you can swipe at restaurants in the city?</p>

<p>(Pssst... How's the food at Chicago, anyhow?)</p>

2

<p>The dining halls are generally above college average. Bartlett is quite nice, but BJ makes up for being beautiful by having pretty bad food.</p>

<p>You get a [flexible or bart, by house] freshman plan by default as described here:</p>

<p><a href="http://rh.uchicago.edu/hds/dining/plans_and_rates/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://rh.uchicago.edu/hds/dining/plans_and_rates/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You can only drop down after the end of first year to lesser ones. The freshman one covers 2-3 meals a during the week, and 1-2 on weekends.</p>

3

<p>There's a LOT of information in this thread, about meal plans and everything else:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/432093-completely-unofficial-08-09-chicago-dorm-guide.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/432093-completely-unofficial-08-09-chicago-dorm-guide.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

4

<p>Basically, there are three dining halls: Bartlett (an old gym, not part of a dorm), Pierce (in Pierce), and BJ (in Burton-Judson -- this is the one that looks like Hogwarts). First-years are assigned to one of them based solely on the dorm in which they live; you don't have any choice in the matter (except insofar as it influences your dorm rankings). First-years pay the same ridiculous exorbitant rate for any of them, but the deal differs between Bartlett and the other two.</p>

<p>If you are assigned to Bartlett, you get an account of points that you spend on an item-by-item, a la carte basis at Bartlett. If you buy the most expensive items in quantity on a daily basis, you can actually run out of points (but it appears not to be a widespread problem).</p>

<p>If you are assigned to Pierce or BJ, you get a certain number of "meals", which means whatever you can stuff in your face or your pockets once you are in the door. You can choose between 17 meals/week (which I think is all they serve -- but maybe they serve 18), or 13 meals/week with some Bartlett points and flex dollars so you can eat at Bartlett or a campus coffee shop sometimes.</p>

<p>The dining halls aren't open for dinner on Saturday (and maybe not for lunch either). People eat at restaurants in Hyde Park (lots of cheap-to-moderate ones), or go elsewhere in the city. Tough as it is, given the outrageous cost of the meal plans, you really should budget some other money for weekend food, too. You could fast for 24 hours, or hoard your flex dollars in order to make sure you can get snacks on weekends, but you're in a great food city, for crying out loud! Get out of your dorm to see it a bit!</p>