What meal plan should I get?

College Life
1

<p>I'm a nursing major, so although I live on campus, most of my time is spent off campus, and as such, last semester, I decided to have the lowest meal plan available (8 meals a week) because I only would be around for about that many. </p>

<p>This semester though, my schedule is a bit different, and I'll be on campus more, and looking at my schedule, would probably eat an average of 10 meals a week in the dining hall...but the next meal plan is 12 meals a week which I would probably never use (11 I could see, but never 12).</p>

<p>Should I stick with the 8 and eat more microwave meals/more pizza (we have a pizza place on campus)/at the "Den" (like a grill type thing where we use our "munch money" -- money for food at the Den etc. that's on our accounts so we swipe our IDs)...or should I get the 12 and have extra meals with less munch money?</p>

<p>Socially, the 12 makes a lot more sense because then I would be able to go to almost all meals with my friends, but in other ways, the 8 makes more sense.</p>

<p>So...opinions?</p>

2

<p>I’d say go for the 12. It’s better to have extra meals than to be without when you need them.</p>

3

<p>That’s what I was thinking…but my mom thinks the exact opposite.</p>

<p>I mean, with the 8 meal plan, I would still get all the meals I needed, just not at the dining hall I would have to go to the pizza place or the Den or order out or make stuff in the microwave (my dorm doesn’t have a kitchen)…and that just seems a) kinda like a pain in the butt and b) silly because then I’ll be missing out on meals with my friends not because I’m in class (the case last semester) but because I simply don’t have enough meals a week to go with them all the time.</p>

4

<p>Is there a door rate for individual dining hall meals, or are the meal plans the only way to enter the dining hall?</p>

5

<p>It’s like $8 or $9 if you want to go into the dining hall without your meal plan…</p>

6

<p>How does the cost of the 12 meal plan compare to the 8 meal plan plus 2 additional meals each week? I am asking because sometimes the per meal cost of the meal plan is not that much cheaper than the door rate. At my own college one meal is $10 door rate or $8.50 on the meal plan. It would be cheaper to pay the door rate for two additional meals than pay for a meal plan with 1-2 unused meals each week.</p>

7

<p>I have no idea…I don’t know exactly what it costs to get into the dining hall without your meal plan because I’ve never done it.</p>

8

<p>At my school, the meal plan is ~ $1.50 per point. If you buy with your campus card (once you run out of points), it’s a dollar per point.</p>

<p>In other words, all meal plans are a huge rip off. And even being on the smallest plan I’m allowed (the off-campus plan), I still have extra meal points… and everyone is required to have a meal plan… I always had some 100-300 extra points leftover with the minimum on-campus plans (that’s a huge loss of money).</p>

<p>grumble grumble grumble.</p>

<p>Anyway, my point of all this is to actually look into the cost of each meal for when you use a meal plan vs. just walking in. I know you’ve never done this, but the information may be available if you look online or call up your dining services.
Cause it just annoys me to hell how much my school’s dining services rips us off.</p>