We have several friends kids at CAL now. They all use flex dollars more then meal swipes. They have all advised us to get more flex dollars because those will be used more while on campus at the cafes in the libraries or elsewhere. Most students miss out on at least one meal a day at a dining hall because of their class schedules so the flex dollars are used in substitution for the missed meal.
The standard meal plan has been fine for my freshman on campus this year. It’s important to understand that students are not prevented from eating in the dining hall after the 12th meal swipe, additional meal costs are just deducted from flex dollars instead. As an example, I can see that my son ate in the dining hall 13 times this past week. The 13th meal came out of flex dollars. The dining hall week runs from Sunday morning to Saturday night and then resets for the next week. Students might choose to get some dinners or lunches off campus with friends.
I don’t think my son has eaten breakfast in the dining hall all year. With a fridge and microwave in his room, quick breakfast options could be cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, bars, trail mix, etc.
We haven’t needed to add flex dollars all year, but it’s easy to do online if more are needed.
Edit to add: If family or friends ever come to visit a student they can eat in the dining hall too and the student can use flex dollars for those meals. My son has done that this year.
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My son is struggling with UCLA vs Berkeley also! He was leaning UCLA then Cal day just blew us all away. I had not spent time in Berkeley in 20 years but was reminded of its wonderful energy and all the gorgeous neighborhoods with historic old houses and views of SF. The area reminded me of Harvard Square with bookstores, cafes, noodle shops. The day itself was so energetic and it was fun to see the whole campus celebrating. Not the Westwood vibe for sure.
So now these schools are a dead tie for him. We shall see how the week goes but a 4/28 deadline sounds like a good idea.
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Same here. He was really impressed with the Bruin Day. Now we did Cal Day, even though he still thinks UCLA has better dorms and better food, Cal’s dorm and food aren’t terrible, just not as nice. By the way, UCLA’s dorm+meal plan seems cheaper than Cal’s. He is admitted as a mechanical engineering major so we mostly did the events by college of engineering. Cal’s ME dept. pulled out demonstrations, showed off their massive machine shop, seemingly more established clubs showcased their products. We live just a bay bridge way from Cal, so he might feel that he never left home. Such a tough decision.
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This is probably true however I think most parents and students overestimate their willingness to stay in university housing all 4 years.
Has he compared the curriculum and outcomes? I assume UCLA is pretty great but I would try to get employment data and grad school data. For 2022, Cal ME median salary was $105k.
Looks like a lot of people in the UCLA vs. Cal boat. Good luck, please come back and let us know how y’all decide.
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This. And as good as UCLA’s food is, I don’t see many kids being excited about getting 4 years of dorm meals. I’d say 2 years tops for most. Then they are cooking for themselves. Shoot, a lot of kids cook for themselves in high school.
Indeed, my kids are making dinner for me as we speak, after they also did today’s grocery shopping. I love having teenagers 
Unfortunately, my kids aren’t big cooks themselves. I’m making my daughter dinner as we speak. 
she does do the shopping for us though! That’s a win
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Berkeley for us! The 4 years of housing and great food at UCLA was enticing but after spending the day in Berkeley surrounded by cafes, noodle shops, tacos, pizza slices etc, the UCLA campus food seems less important. I also agree that few kids will want to live on campus at either place although the option is nice.
We just walked around UCLA for the 4th time ( we are in SoCal ) and the campus remains lovely and the school is incredible but felt a bit too removed from sidewalk life and the vibrancy we felt at Berkeley. There is no wrong decision here. We are all so lucky to have any UC options-- all truly great schools. But Berkeley just won us over. Good luck everyone.
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Guess it’s worse in my household. S22 is home this weekend and we are both driving to pick up Indian food from a food truck on a gas station parking lot where the chefs are both Mexican 
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Well tbh that sounds like it’s probably delicious
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You bet!
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I would agree at most schools, but not at UCLA. During the pandemic, UCLA stopped offering a meal plan to off campus students and students/parents were really upset. The food there is quite good and there is a lot of variety. It isn’t your classic “dorm food.”
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This is right. It’s definitely not normal “dorm food.” I think if the university-owned on campus apartments were guaranteed to go back to offering a meal plan, our son would have strongly considered staying on campus for a third year. As is, we don’t know if that will be available, so he’s moving to a nearby off-campus apartment. But he will very happily pay friends who still have meal plans to swipe him in. The food is good and definitely one way in which UCLA is clearly preferable to Cal. Everything is just a little bit cheaper at UCLA too. I’m not sure why. Maybe because of housing triples. Our daughter’s COA at UCSD where she just accepted her spot is definitely higher!
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Just don’t accept the seat by 05/01. You don’t have to explicitly decline.
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does anyone have a link for the virtual welcoming events APril 25-27? My daughter can’t find the links on her portal
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Does anyone know how quickly will student receive a “Berkeley email address” after accepting the spot? Noticed that the Bowles hall application asks for it and the deadline is also 5/1 midnight. Thanks!
If I’m not mistaken, once you commit, you are prompted to create your ID which will be basis for your berkeley,edu email. So as soon as you do that, you should be good to go.
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yes. there is something in the process that might take 24 hours to show up. I think it’s your “bearmail”, which effectively is a gmail acct for all berkeley (dot) edu accts. once you create your user name, I think it takes 24 hours for your bear mail acct to be activated, and you can find it in the upper right corner of cal central (along with links to your calendar and G drive)
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