Stanford Meal Plan

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
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<p>So I'm currently gong through the meal plan info and I'm a bit confused as to how we're supposed to pay for it. I basically got a full ride minus $2,000 a year that I had to pay for. Now, does that include the food plan? I looked at my award letter but there was no mention of food. Also, in our New Housing email it said that all freshmen were automatically put under the 19 meal a week meal plan.
Will Stanford pay for it? I don't think I can afford $5,000 for food a year...</p>

<p>Help please!</p>

2

<p>Olive_Tree your financial aid letter should have had a section entitled “Anticipated Expenses” where Room and Board is listed as $11,463. Food is included in Room and Board. Basically, just have the family responsibility paid, and everything else (tuition, food, shelter, insurance etc) is paid for by Stanford. Hope this helps :)</p>

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<p>All right. Thanks for clearing that up.</p>

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<p>No problem :)</p>

5

<p>food = the board in room and board</p>

6

<p>For the record, frosh are automatically put on 19 meals a week, but that’s easy to change. I believe you can do it at dining.stanford.edu within the first week or two of fall quarter. To be safe, if you’re going to change it, do it during orientation week.</p>

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<p>I changed my meal plan today to 14 a week.</p>

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<p>just curious, would anyone recommend changing the meal plan from 19 per week to 14 a week?? is it more useful to have cardinal dollars?</p>

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<p>^ Dollars are useful because apparently the dining hall food gets old really fast. And you’re bound to skip a meal or two at the halls anyway or not make the scheduled times. I haven’t had anyone tell me to do 10 a week yet. I think 14 is the safe, middle ground.</p>

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<p>Ok guys, so I’m really picky with numbers so I calculated out all what we were actually getting from the different meal plans. And from what I’ve discovered, it seems like the 14mls and 10 mls are slightly ripping us off. Well here goes:</p>

<p>So we have 3 meal plans, 19meals/wk, 14meals/wk + $420/yr, 10 meals/wk + $750/yr</p>

<p>All 3 plans cost the same amount</p>

<p>I have a chart of how many days are in each quarter and so forth. Here goes. The 1st quarter has 85 days and costs $1834. 2nd quarter 76 days and costs $1640. 3rd quarter has 73 days and costs $1578.</p>

<p>There’s a total of 234 days costing $5052. dividing this, we have an average of ~$21.59/day</p>

<p>The price/day for each of the 3 quarters is as follows
Q1: ~21.58
Q2: ~21.58
Q3: ~21.62</p>

<p>There’s barely any deviation here. 3rd quarter seems a lil bit more expensive. I broke down the # of weekdays and weekends and I’m guessing quarter 3 costs a bit more because there seems to be more weekdays. Not a big deal.</p>

<p>Now here’s the part that has me confused…</p>

<p>Comparing the 19meals with the 14meals. we’ll just look at 1st quarter since all 3 should be about the same. quarter 1 has 85 days or 12 weeks and a day. Ignore the day; it won’t factor much of a difference. the 14meals/week will have 5 meals less a week and through the whole quarter ~60meals less. now you are given $155 meal plan dollars this quarter. But if you calculate the average cost of each of these meals they’re paying you not to eat, it is a measly $2.58.</p>

<p>I’ll go on and compare the 19meals and the 10 meals. This time you’ll have 108 less meals by choosing the 10meals/week. But you are given $270. That calculates to $2.50 for each meal. Even less money to not eat a meal!!</p>

<p>So i’m hella confused. If you look at the stanford dining page here: [Stanford</a> Dining - Meal Plan Options](<a href=“http://stanford.edu/dept/rde/dining/meal_plans.htm]Stanford”>http://stanford.edu/dept/rde/dining/meal_plans.htm) you can see that breakfast costs $5.72, lunch costs $7.32, and dinner costs $9.15. I mean at the very least give us $5/meal right? and the 19 meals/week, are they assuming that we eat brunch on weekends?</p>

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<p>@runeknightx:
Sam King makes some repeatable commentary on the Facebook discussion: [Meal</a> Plans | Facebook](<a href=“Redirecting...”>Redirecting...) .
It seems to be more about logistics than calculation.</p>

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<p>The thing you have to keep in mind is that very few people actually end up eating 19 meals a week. If you never eat breakfast, you’re down to 14 right there. If you only eat breakfast 2 days a week, but have student group meetings that serve food twice a week, that’s also down to 14. So if you’re only going to use 14 a week anyway, you might as well take the points that you’re basically getting for free.</p>

<p>This year, I ate breakfast whenever I could, and still never used 14 a week.</p>

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<p>considering how i never eat breakfast now and i was forced to when i did precollege programs, it sounds like the 14 a week meal plan is best for me. what time is breakfast served?? 8 or earlier i know is impossible for me. also, how do you change your meal plan?</p>

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<p>Oh I see, thanks for your advice. But coming from someone who enjoys eating breakfast, I will start with the 19 meal program and see how it goes the 1st two weeks.</p>

<p>This may sound cheap in a way, but I was thinking, since you’re allowed to change whenever in the 1st two weeks free of charge, what happens if you use all your Cardinal dollars during that time, then switch back to like say the 19 week meal plan. Will you be punished somehow?</p>

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<p>The difference is taken out of your cardinal $ account balance.</p>

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<p>So it’s possible to have negative Cardinal Dollars? Awesome.</p>

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<p>Get the 14 meal/wk plan or even 10 guys. Very few people who aren’t athletes end up using all 19 meals/wk. It’s almost impossible to make it to the dining hall all those times. I can count on one hand all the times I ate breakfast (not brunch) at the dining hall. Not kidding. And I’m not a small eater in the least. The Cardinal Dollars are basically free money, and that’s why they don’t give you a good price for them for the meals you’re giving up.</p>

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<p>Hrrm never thought about the possibility of a negative balance. I suppose it is possible if you use all your cardinal $ on a 14 meal plan then switch to a 19 plan. I’ve never heard of it though.</p>

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<p>you can switch once without any penalty once school starts, so you can leave it on the default 19/wk while you explore and get settled in and such, then decide based on the schedule you develop whether to switch to 14 or 10</p>

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<p>Help me out guys; I read somewhere that Cardinal Dollars were like debit cards. So, basically do you put your own money into an account of sorts and then that money makes up your CD?</p>

<p>I don’t think I ever got the logic behind Cardinal Dollars…</p>