Both my kids had pretty good food options. D1 at Purdue and D2 at Ohio University. There was only one school where food options were mentioned and that was at Ohio Northern University. The food wasn’t bad per say but they (being a smaller private school) only had one dining hall option. The school was in a small town so options outside the dining hall were pretty limited. I went to the University of Southern Mississippi that only had one dining hall at the time. I just loved that there was food three times a day. Of course I grew up on Chef Boy R Dee ravioli and loved it so there’s that.
2 Likes
ONU and U of S M are on my daughters list. I do worry a bit about minimal food options!
The only pressure for my kid was ME! I told her when all her friends were at the beach and saying “Hey let’s go get pizza” that she should say “OH, we already paid for pizza on our meal plan, so we should just go back to campus.”
I don’t think that worked.
(she got a meal plan through her athletic scholarship, so she was always swiping in other kids (like her boyfriend and his brother), giving away food, treating other kids. The meal plans were ridiculously expensive so not all kids had them).
Do not take my description of USM food options worth much. It was 45 years ago. I imagine they have better options today. ONU was a summer experience for my D but we only were aware of one dining hall.
S22 is at UMass Amherst and the food is very good. He’s on an unlimited plan and the dining halls are open all day until around 11pm (they don’t close between meal times). Never an excuse for not getting enough to eat. This was last night’s dinner . . .
5 Likes
Wow, even living in Maine, I’m surprised they feed the kids lobster!
1 Like
My daughter '22 loved the food so much she trained to be a spin instructor at the REC center in large part to offset all the calories :). There’s a reason Princeton Review has them # 1 for the past bazillion years. I admittedly miss the free parent meal swipes at BERK.
1 Like
It’s not often, but still . . .
1 Like
Of the colleges my kids toured, JMU was rated best food (A+ on Niche) and they have robots that deliver food on campus. Northeastern has lobster once a year and they give the kids small lobster stuffed animals on lobster night.
3 Likes
The University of Tennessee, if I recall correctly, has a Panda Express in the lobby of one its dorms. Some of their dorms have mini food courts in their lobbies with a variety of fast-food options. Heaven-on-earth for college students but not the healthiest of food choices.
1 Like
My kids graduated from a public high school in WI and taking a swim class was a graduation requirement. The school was .5 miles from Lake Michigan and it seemed like almost every summer there was a drowning or near miss. I thought the swim class was smart. Would have been even better to do it in elementary school, but the high school had the pool. College swim tests don’t make sense to me.
We toured UMass Amherst a few weeks ago and they mentioned this Halloween tradition! I will show my husband this picture 
At some point soon I will manage a review of all our tours…but UMass was notable for the amount of time spent talking about their great food. Both the admissions presentation and the tour guide went on & on & on… At one point my husband whispered “they teach and learn here too right?”
1 Like
My kid put the school colors as a column on our spreadsheet! lol
4 Likes
One of my two kept a spreadsheet, and school colors were on it as well (with an official color cell drawn from the exact specifications for the school color, from the school website)
5 Likes
Coming close to year-end, need higher write-off’s in current tax year 
2 Likes
Back in the stone ages we had lobster at Cornell as part of the “cross country gourmet” program. We ate well ; )
No lobster at Purdue but the kids can use swipes at a number of restaurants and food trucks, which was a nice change from the dining halls and added a lot more variety. There was also a Cosi in my D’s dorm that took swipes.
2 Likes
Maybe someone should tell the US Dept of Ed to require the Pantone codes in the CDS?
7 Likes
Colby has had lobster for at least 25 years 
1 Like
- My C17 didn’t care about school colors, as long as they weren’t judged as hopelessly ugly. (Sorry, Clemson!)
- My C19, as someone who’s very much into the design side of engineering, cared deeply about school colors.
- My C23 didn’t care as long as there was no red. The kid doesn’t like red.
- My C25 doesn’t appear to care at all.
But why not have a color column? You have to thin the list somehow, you know?
2 Likes
Hmm, S16 college is known (mascot) as a color.