<p>Wesleying posted next year's meal plans, but they don't make very much sense to me.</p>
<p>Block 210 MEALS/$100 POINTS PER SEMESTER (averages 14 meals per week)
Block 165 MEALS/$275 POINTS PER SEMESTER (averages 11 meals per week)
Block 135 MEALS/$475 POINTS PER SEMESTER (averages 9 meals per week)
Block 285 MEALS/$50 POINTS PER SEMESTER (averages 19 meals per week) (with an additional cost of $300 per semester)</p>
<p>Could a current student explain that list (particularly how the dollar amounts seem to have no correlation with the number of meals)?
Any recommendations for freshmen are appreciated.</p>
<p>They are perfectly in correlation. 19 meals gives you the lease points, and 9 gives you the most. But I don't get why 19 meals costs $300 more. 10 Meals a weaek = $625 per semester? Weird.</p>
<p>I might be going with 14 meals per week and just make breakfast for myself.</p>
<p>These are different options for splitting up how you'd like to spend your meal plan.</p>
<p>There are two ways to pay for meals on campus:
- meals
- points</p>
<p>Meals can only be used at Usdan (the campus center) or at Summerfields, which provide good full meals. Points can additionally be spent at Weshop (the convenience store), Pi Cafe, Red & Black Cafe, Star & Crescent (an eating club), WesWings (eatery with sports bar atmosphere ish without the bar).</p>
<p>So the more meals you have, the less points you'll have. It's a matter of what kind of balance you want. Freshmen tend to eat more at the cafeteria (which are much more social) and thus use more meals; upperclassmen often have apartments or houses with their own kitchens, and use all points so they can buy ingredients from Weshop and do their own cooking.</p>
<p>Hope that helps! Probably you'll want the meal plan with the most points that you're allowed to have as a freshman.</p>
<p>What's confusing me is - what can you do with 100 points/semester? Even the high end comes to about $30/week - less than $5/day. Is that enough to eat on? Last year's plans, according to the bonappetit page on the Wes website, offered a range of 686 - 1016 points / semester versus the 100 - 475 in this list. Or is a la carte eating cheaper than I realize?</p>
<p>
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what can you do with 100 points/semester?
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<p>Not much, to be honest. With 14 meals per week, that plan is clearly expecting you to eat at Usdan or Summerfield’s every day for lunch and dinner, with the points serving to get the occasional coffee from Pi or Ramen from WesShop. It’s actually more like the plans that existed when I (2010) was a Freshmen, where some Freshmen had no points at all, IIRC (or at least close to it).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t suggest it. Almost no one eats 14 meals per week. </p>
<p>In general, the reason these plans offers less points than any of the ones from this year, is that no plan this year had so many meals (I think the largest plan had 8 meals). $30/week with 9 meals might be a little tight, but would generally be fine (esp. since many people pay cash for at least one meal a week by ordering in, going out, going to the deli, etc).</p>
<p>However, for those who really want to focus on the points-oriented meal places, the all point plan (for Jrs and Srs) is clearly the way to go.</p>
<p>It all depends on how much/where you want to eat. I know a lot of athletes end up getting more meals, because they can go to Usdan and eat three trays full of food while only using up one "meal." So, if you're a really big eater, you will want to have more meals, because that will be the cheap way to get lots of food. </p>
<p>Having more points as opposed to meals gives you more flexibility in where you eat, because you can just grab things a-la-carte rather than needing to go sit down at Usdan or Summerfields. You can still use points to pay for meals at those places (upperclass students do, when they go to dining halls), you just have the option of going elsewhere. </p>
<p>If I were a frosh, I'd go for the block 135 plan (about 9 meals/week). My frosh year, we had to either have 12 or 14 meals a week, and some negligible amount of points. Everyone got the 12 meal/week plan, and I don't think most people used all those meals every week. I certainly didn't. It can be hard to make it to the dining hall that many times at the appropriate hours. Now, the food is much better, so there's more incentive to go, but still. Also, the block plan is better because you don't lose your meals at the end of the week, but like I said, you can always supplement with more points.</p>
<p>Make sure you take a tupperware container or backpack and fill it with food on the way out. You'll thank yourself when you wake up at 3am in the morning and there is nowhere to eat. Or you don't want to spend another meal for breakfast.</p>
<p>It depends. Breakfast is the cheapest, lunch is more, and dinner is the most expensive. The prices might change for next year, and I don't really remember what they were this year. Breakfast was around $5.50, lunch was $7.50 or so, and dinner was $9.25, I think. Someone correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly.</p>
<p>Yeah, they're equivalent. People might say they're not, because of the "dining fee," which means that even the all-points plan costs more than the actual number of points you get. However, in terms of buying things, points are equal to dollars.</p>