Hello,
My son is a freshman engineering student living in Thurston hall. He likes everything so far but while talking to him I discovered there’s no traditional cafeteria. When I visited campus over the summer my impression was J Street in Marvin hall serves as the dining hall but I guess I misinterpreted it especially since it doesnt open on weekends.
Can someone please describe the typical square meals students buy around campus? I can imagine it costs an arm and leg to buy breakfast/lunch/dinner from restaurants close by!
J Street closed at the end of the academic year and now the ~$3900/year in the GWorld meal plan is used for dining in
the 90 participating restaurants and grocery stores around the campus and in the DC area. My son is a freshman living in Potomac. He eats 2 meals a day out. Some of the participating restaurants offer “meal deals” (I believe the restaurants are listed on the GW website). He tells me he spends approximately $15/day for food during the week and sometimes a bit more on weekends, but is on track to stay within $3900/year. He uses his own water bottle and fills up at water stations around campus. He also buys some of his food at Whole Foods on campus. I also sent him with a ton of snacks, peanut butter, etc. I think he is eating better than if he were in a traditional cafeteria. There are some reasonable restaurants around campus which offer healthy choices and reasonable prices.
No, there’s no “traditional” dining experience unless your son want to go to the Vern, where there’s a dining hall in the basement of West Hall.
As far as the meals available, there are A LOT:
Potbelly’s sandwiches and soups
GW Deli
Chick-Fil-A express
Smoothies
Dunkin Donuts
Au Bon Pain
Perfect Pita
And one or two locations with salad and sandwich bars
I know I’ve missed a few non-restaurant places (I haven’t been on campus since the big overhaul this year), but overall, GW students have the ability to eat very well. Many students will stock-up on breakfast items from Whole Foods or Trader Joes and just eat in their dorm room before classes. It might be a little overwhelming at first, having so many options, but your son will pick it up quickly.
My daughter is a first year student and is finding it challenging to manage her meal budget. The restaurants charge restaurant prices (yes, there are certain deals at certain places at certain times/days). She tells us they are encouraged to cook themselves to reduce costs, but there is only one four-burner stove in her dorm. The only grocery store within walking distance of Foggy Bottom is Whole Foods, which is not good for price-sensitive customers. (She can take the shuttle to the Vern and walk to/from Safeway, but you have to be pretty committed to do that.) We’ll see how things play out for the rest of the year.
@yotommy Yeah, it’s really difficult to cook as a freshman. I think most freshman dorms are quite limited in that ability. And no, trekking to the Vern to hit-up Safeway isn’t really feasible.
If she really wants to make her dollars stretch, she should have breakfast items in her room (mil & cereal, bagels, etc), have lunch at one of the many delis or salad bars on campus (heck, even Potbelly’s is affordable for lunch), and then she can eat at one of the grills or salad bars again for dinner.
In the end, students figure it out. Will it cost a bit more while they do this? Sure. Eating at the actual restaurants on campus is expensive and will chew-through the dining dollars, but students have to figure things out on their own. My suggestion is to be there for your students if they’re actually asking for advice, but if they’re just venting, try to understand that this is part of them learning to do things on their own and that they’ll figure it out sooner or later.
@TomSrOfBoston And they are social places. The one on the Vern is just like that, and there are plenty of locations on Foggy that have taken the place of a dining hall as far as socializing goes. The basement of Shenkman Hall is like a mini dining facility that will have students eating and/or studying from 9am to midnight. People still hang-out in the Marvin Center, Kogan Plaza, and around 2020 Penn where there are a few places to eat.
Trust me- for a campus of GW’s physical size and student body size, there are always groups of students to socialize with.
I am not that familiar with GWU but Boston University recently built a large new dining hall for students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0t9QySkRjc
Looks like these two colleges have moved in opposite directions in their approach to student dining.
@NHuffer You’re correct about it being difficult for freshmen to cook in their rooms. My son was in a Thurston-6 so basically they only have the microwave but they did have 2 full size refrigerators. He brought dishes at move in but washing them became a chore since they either used the tub in the bathroom or had to use the slop sink in the garbage/recycling closet. So I would send him occasional care packages which included some snacks, easy-mac, microwavable oatmeal, cereal, non-refrigerated microwave meals etc. but I also included paper bowls, plates and cups (they always need toilet tissue too). I know disposable plates are not the most environmentally friendly, but it worked for his roommates and him. Also, the meals at most places are very large that many days he only ate two full meals and made something in the microwave in the room.
They would shop for perishables, mainly at Trader Joe’s. It’s a little farther than Whole Foods, but they liked it better. They would walk there and Uber it back.
I haven’t heard anyone say they liked J-Street and all the students seem to be happy that the lone ‘dining hall’ on Foggy Bottom is gone. My son finally used up his J-Street money at the end of Sophomore Year.
@TomSrOfBoston The GW location although it is an urban campus like BU, it is quite different from BU (we toured both schools) as there are many, many different types of restaurants, delis, takeout places within minimal walking distance. BU seemed to be more of a mix of the school buildings (many of them, like GW) but I did not see the vast amount retail stores and restaurants like at GW. This is mainly because so many governmental offices and embassies literally share the same streets, (GSA, IMF, World Bank toname a few), they all need a place to eat. Both are great schools I might add!
@NHuffer I enjoy reading your GW posts, you are so right on point. Thanks for being such a great ambassador for GW, my son loves it there too!
@mommymetal Thank you for the kind words I really enjoy helping aspiring Colonials and new students.
@ClarinetDad16 There used to be a cafeteria but the students didn’t like it between the food choices and prices. I’m not certain, but perhaps the costs of running something like that in the city is too high? Either way, just as others have said, the students don’t really seem to mind. There are A LOT of options of campus.
Well, if it makes you all feel any better if your kid goes over, as a parent who had kids attending other private colleges, $3900 per year sounds pretty cheap!
@ClarinetDad16 are there any other top 100 schools without a true dining experience? Idk but it doesn’t matter at an urban school as much as it might at a rural campus. I think if you’re looking at urban schools in NY DC Boston etc there’s a trade off, you can be in the middle of a dynamic city and dine with the people in the city or choose to elsewhere, to be in a typical campus with a traditional dining hall. There’s no right or wrong, everyone is different, there are the 3000+ colleges & universities in the US from which to choose.
@doschicos Yes, $3,900.00 is cheap. But it also seems to not be enough. Our older daughter goes to a small liberal arts school and we pay $5400.00 for 21 meals a week. But she has no limit to healthy (and non-healthy) food.
D2 is a freshman at GW, living in Potomac and she has to watch her food budget. She is learning to be an adult of course, so she does have to watch her spending money - we just didn’t expect her to have to watch her food budget as well. Note many people have said they send their children many care packages to supplement their GW dining dollars.
I feel the lack of cafeteria is a hindrance and here are some thoughts on this:
No common social area. No place all your friends go to and meet up. Yes @NHuffer the cafeteria’s closed because it wasn’t good - but most colleges have figured this problem out, and I know GWU could as well.
Having to budget for food - and as we know healthier food is more expensive, so they end up getting slices of pizza and eating cereal for breakfast to stay within the 1900/semester. I don't want my daughter to make food choices at this age based on cost - I want her to eat healthy food, period. (And other colleges now days do have many healthy options.)
GW dining tweets food specials at local restaurants each week (make sure your kids are following this tweeter feed), and the specials aren't for kale salads, it is pizza, pizza, bagels, 7-11 sandwiches, etc. I do however appreciate GW dining letting the kids know about specials. And @NHuffer - before you say: but this is what kids eat - it probably is, it just isn't what my daughter and her friends eat.
GW dining encourages the kids to cook their own food to keep the cost down - but they only provide 1 oven/stove in Potomac (>300 kids) and 1 in Thurston (>1000) kids. Older daughter - with the full meal plan - has a kitchen on every floor at her college. Our younger daughter has a group that she cooks with on Sunday night - which is just the wonderful college communal experience she should have - but really feasible only once a week.
GWU is one of the most expensive Universities - we feel this is an additional but hidden cost to room and board. I also feel that GW will change, re-think and come up with another plan next year. They are getting too much negative feedback on this one.
And onto the next hidden cost- did you know it cost $60.00 to go to health services, and they don’t have walk-in hours? Our daughter just used some of her Colonial bucks to buy a thermometer at CVS. Again, I compare this to D1’s small and expensive college - walk in hours and no extra cost, beyond the tuition we pay.
That said, my daughter’s academic experience has been wonderful, she has great classes and great teachers. Her social experience has been great too.
How does having no traditional dining plan impact GW when students have to make a choice versus its peers?
GW’s peer schools, as submitted to the Department of Education
American University
Boston University
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
New York University
Northwestern University
Southern Methodist University
Tufts University
Tulane University
University of Miami
University of Southern California
Vanderbilt University
Washington University in St. Louis
@malaprop I guess my point in mentioning the cheaper cost is one could go over budget and still be ahead $-wise vs other schools’ mean plans. However, not having a student at GW, I don’t like the idea of no common meeting place where you’re more likely to meet new people and bump into friends as you mention in your point #1. But, I guess that is part of what one is choosing by going to GW.
Someone (@Malaprop) mentioned that the administration is hearing a lot of complaints about this. Can you fill us in on what you know? That would be great! Is there any formal way for parents and students to lodge complaints? I think when the basement dining at district house opens that will help with this issue A LOT - at least the communal dining aspect. But I’d love to join the uproar (if there is one) about the delay in getting district house open. My daughter loves GW and we knew all about the dining situation when she decided to go, but we thought district house would be open in late August as GW said it was going to be! Please don’t reply with info about the difficulty of approvals and construction in DC - I understand! I’d just like to register my complaint with GW if there is a way to do that. Once there is some kind of food at the J street location and district house basement is fully operational, I think that will REALLY help.
I disagree about there not being a social area. Granted, there isn’t one large one where you’ll find 1,000 of your classmates in one spot, but there are several locations to hangout depending on your mood: U-Yard, Kogan Plaza, Marvin Center, Gelman, Shenkman Hall basement, and apparently District House has a large social area as well. When I attended (not that long ago) there was never a shortage of spots to hang out and/or meet new students.
Yes, that’s a definitely a down-side to GW’s way of dining. I’m sure it’s easier to have a program where all your meals are included and you can eat whatever you want, but at the same time, isn’t college supposed to be a learning/growing experience? There are a lot of students at GW that live on campus all four years, so if GW had a different type of meal plan, students wouldn’t get to learn what’s it’s like to be independent and figure out what to eat.
Yeah, it’s a shame that those are the only specials given to the students. I don’t remember there being too many specials while I attending, so we just bought whatever we wanted.
I agree, this was a big let-down for me, as well. My dorm (Merriweather) only had one kitchen for the building and we had maybe 25 students in the whole dorm. Even with such small numbers, I never once cooked there because it was a hassle. Tell your daughter to hang in there, though- it will be a lot different next year as a sophomore.
I can’t speak to any statistics, but what makes you think that the dining program will be a major factor for students (I’m sure it’s different for parents) when deciding between GW and its peers? I think the the GW experience is so unlike others that students
I really enjoy helping aspiring Colonials and new students.