My son (Freshman Fall 2016) is hoping to live in Bryant. It looks like the Freshman are required to get the All Access Meal Plan. Would it be better for us to request that he get one of the athletic meal plans instead? Or would it be better for him to use Dining Dollars or some other way to eat at Bryant at night?
Thank you!
According to the webpage, you can only eat at bryant a night with the athletic meal plan which can be purchased.
However, the cost may not be worth it…very expensive. Dinners are over $20 each …many eat at nearby Burke instead…or at a dining hall that is near their last class.
Is your son a Big eater, or extremely athletic, or does he just love meat? I would say if the answer is Yes to 2 out of the 3 questions, then the athletic meal plan could be worthwhile. I know students who really enjoyed the meals at Bryant in the evenings, when they used to have an upcharge for that meal. (I don’t know if that option is still allowed). But also remember, that most students get “tired” of eating only in the dining halls. There are other options for food both on and off campus where dining dollars can be used to supplement the dining hall food options. In reality, most students will eat some meals off campus at restaurants, which can be paid for by cash, so don’t forget to add those meals into your student’s dining budget. I suppose it is possible to insist that your student just eat meals on campus, but even doing that would probably require trips to the supermarket for certain essentials like milk.
Why does your student want to live in Bryant, may I ask? If you don’t want to post, PM me.
One thing to keep in mind is that if most of your son’s friends do not have the athletic meal plan, they’re unlikely to be eating dinner at Bryant very often because of the upcharge. So if your son wanted to eat dinner with friends who didn’t have the athletic meal plan, he’d have to go to the other dining halls, which would be a big waste of money. OTOH, if he loves meat and has friends with the athletic meal plan, it might work out well. Generally it’s easy to upgrade meal plans and almost impossible to downgrade, so you might want to start him with the all-access and then, if he really wants to eat at Bryant and does so often, upgrade to the athletic meal plan. (I’m assuming you can do that; verifying with Dining would be wise).
@beth’s mom makes a very important point. Your son will be eating where his friends will be eating, and most, if not all of them, will not be eating dinner at Bryant, simply because of cost.
If you were to buy the Althletic meal plan, you might find it going to waste because the other eng’g students will be eating at Burke, Lakeside or elsewhere.
Since Bryant no longer allows the upcharge, it seems to only allow eating dinner there if you’ve purchased one of their offered athletic plans, your son’s friends may never eat there.
Thank you. We talked about the fact that he might not know anyone to eat with there. 
Being able to upgrade sounds like a nice option if he finds he needs it. Thank you so much for helping us think this through.
Yes, downgrading a meal plan is nearly impossible, so do weigh your options carefully. The dining plan for a freshman is expensive enough and as I said, most students do occasionally tire of the dining hall food options and will look to eat elsewhere sometimes.
I just looked at some of the plate photos on Facebook, and I think the Bryant Dining Hall would be worth the extra money even if you didn’t eat every meal there. Some of the stuff looks borderline gourmet.
@EarlVanDorn what Facebook page are you looking at? I haven’t tapped into the information on social media much and would love to learn more about the school, campus, and community. Thank you.
@bmolloy97, not sure if this is the page @EarlVanDorn is referring to, but there are some photos there: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bryant-Dining-Hall/142131862493195?fref=ts
I don’t know about “gourmet,” but the food is supposed to be of a much higher quality than the typical dining hall food at Bama. A lot of kids go to Bryant for a good breakfast!
facebook.com/pages/Bryant-Dining-Hall/142131862493195?fref=ts
copy and paste the above into your browser. For some reason it wants to edit out the word Facebook in a full link.