<p>I recently got my meal plan option sheet from the Office of Resident Life… I’d like some input into which meal plan to choose? Price isn’t realy an issue as they’re all within $300 of eachother… what would you recommend as the best plan? I don’t want to starve to death but I don’t want to waste extra meals that I don’t use, and my eating patterns differ greatly depending on my similarly changing sleeping habits, but sometimes I’ll eat one meal a day and other times I’ll eat 3-5… </p>
<li>21 meals per week @ $4,280</li>
<li>14 meals per week + $20 points/semester @ $3,967</li>
<li>Combo Plan - 10 meals/week + $400 points/semester @ $4,155</li>
<li>Flex Plan - 100 meals/semester + $600 points/semester @ $4,199</li>
</ol>
<p>Personally I’m guessing the last plan seems to be the best… how far do those points get you? What’s the cost for an average meal?</p>
<p>Go with either the flex plan or the combo. I was on the combo plan last year and signed up for it again this year. Its a good mix between meals and points and that way if you somehow run out of points before the end of the semester you're still guaranteed 10 meals each week. You still have plenty of points because on average it seems people eat between 10 and 12 meals per week on campus because they like to go out a couple of times on the weekends. So really you'd only be using your points to make up the 2 extra meals and to buy an snacks/ coffee you want.</p>
<p>The way the plans work is that you can use a meal or points. At sherman (the all you can eat place) everything costs one meal. At usdan you use up to a certain number of points per meal. Breakfast you get $3.90, Lunch is $5.80 and dinner is $7.50. So if you use a meal you can buy up to 7.50 in stuff for dinner, for example. Or you can use points and it will deduct as much as you bought no matter how cheap or expensive it is. Anytime you have extra points and the end of the meal (say you buy $4 worth of food but have $7.80 alotted for dinner) you can fill up the meal by buying extra drinks and cookies and other snack food. I'm not sure if I explained that well...ask if you have any questions.</p>
<p>It doesn't seem to apply to you, macadmiaman, but to anyone who reads this: don't get the 21 meal plan. Its a waste for almost everyone because classes starter much later than high school so either you probably won't make it to breakfast (starting at 11:00 (or around there) meals become lunch meals so even if you're eating "breakfast" the school counts it as lunch) or you'd perfer to sleep in a little bit so its more efficient to buy cereal and eat in your room.</p>
<p>Something else to consider is that most of the meal plans only allow you to have one meal per meal period. Breakfast is from 8-10:30 or 11, lunch is from 11-4:45, and dinner is from 4:45 until midnight (when the last dining hall closes). So if you're on the 21 meal plan and miss breakfast one day you can' get 2 lunches later in the day (even if you considered one to be breakfast and the other lunch). So what i'm getting at is that
1) its good to have points in case you want to get food twice within one meal period or after midnight (the coffee shop and snack shop is open until 2:00 am)
2) unless you're positive you can get up for breakfast every day, or pretty sure you'll eat 14 meals each week on campus the other plans might be better because you won't waste meals. </p>
<p>2 more things:
-The flex plan is the only plan where you're allowed to use more than one meal in a meal period.
- Points carry over from first semster to 2nd semester. And if you still have points at the end of the year you can use them to buy products in the convinience store like toothpaste, laundry detergent, shampoo etc. So unlike meals, extra points don't go to waste.</p>
<p>I hope this helps. Ask if you have anymore questions!</p>
<p>Ditto. I was on the 14 meal one for first semester and hated it. I switched to the 10 meal one and it was good. I pretty much had just enough for the whole semester, though I used points on stuff like detergent, phone cards, medicine, etc.</p>
<p>I think there are about 13 weeks in a semester plus a week and a half of finals. Second semester there are 2 1-week breaks that you can stay on campus for so you may or may not use a meal plan that week. Also, as Shoshie alluded to, you can change your meal plan during the first 2 weeks of each semester so you're not totally set in whatever you choose right now.</p>
<p>Eh, to be honest, the food isn't Brandeis' strongest point. It ranges from the barely edible to the decently good. But generally one can find something pretty good to eat. If not, there's always easy mac. ^_^</p>
<p>I don't think its bad. Its not amazing but compared to what a lot of my friends from high school have at their colleges, Brandeis seems to have a better variety. As long as you switch between the different dining halls enough its good...and theres always the stein if you want something nicer than usual dining hall food.</p>
<p>Students have worked to get better hours and it seems like many times when students make requests for certain food items the requests are honored, but in terms of making all of the food better, it doesn't seem realistic. Students already complain that the food is too expensive but the administration says in order to improve the quality of food we'd have to pay even more, and no one wants to do that. Honestly, people complain but I don't think its so bad that we need to demand it all be better, there are only certain things that need to be changed.</p>
<p>yeah, all points carry over from the fall semester to the spring one. they don't carry over year-to-year, but you can buy lots of products in bulk at the end of the year, if you have the points left.</p>
<p>just make sure you don't wait till the very last week... the c-store becomes empty, very very fast! try to use up your points just before the major end-of-year rush. (though i guess you have awhile before you encounter this)</p>