One of D24’s friends was complaining about the meal plan at VT so I finally decided to check out the dining plans on all the colleges D24 is considering.
The biggest plan at VT is “approximately” 14 meals a week. Not swipes, it’s all declining balance with 50-67% discounts from the posted price for those on a meal plan. Most will need to supplement their plan in some way, adding money to the plan, buying groceries or dining out off campus.
A lot more complicated than a swipes meal plan, but I am sure they all figure it out.
Almost 50 different dining shops in locations all over campus!
I can see the value in the flex plans. Back in the dinosaur age, I had the full 19 meal plan on campus the first semester, but among my friend group, I was one of the few that used most, if not all, my meals during the week. But if I left campus for the weekend, or we went off campus to eat, I lost those meals, of course. I believe I flipped over to a flex plan for the spring semester. My friends & I preferred to go to Owens Food Court and eat ala cart, so back then, the flex plan seemed to be the sweet spot for most (for most lighter eating folks anyway), and the “swipes” didn’t have a good exchange value in the food court/counter service type spots.
I was an off campus living transfer back in the dinosaur age, and never had a meal plan. I do remember eating at the on campus Burger King far more than any person should, because it was a convenient place to hang out and study between classes.
D24 thinks the “equates to approximately 10 meal a week” plan would be fine for her…skip breakfast or have a granola bar, coffee, or something, eat the other two meals on campus, and then fend for herself on the weekends.
S24 was accepted EA, but we haven’t received anything in the mail yet either. No parent emails either. I just recently had to tell him to send me the registration email for Hokie Focus.
Like bronzerfish mentioned, VT tries so hard to be transparent with the current dining plan, but it leaves parents super confused and there are tons of posts each semester on the parent facebook page. Now the dining plans start with a significant overhead and then a chunk of money that can be used to buy food at 50% off most places (more than that at D2). When kids move off campus, it’s cheaper to just buy them “dining dollars” to buy campus food tax free. It feels like a worse deal because it’s not 50% off, but you don’t have the significant overhead.
There are a couple of dining locations over on the academic side, including a new one opening soon, so no need to cross the drillfield!
Living Learning Communities. There are also RLCs, Residential Learning Communities.
Each one has a focus, some examples being well-being, entrepreneurship, art, LGBTQ, engineering, etc. Each has reserved space in a particular dorm, so if you get into the LLC you would know which dorm you would be living in. There are social events & required activities, and for some, a required class. There may be a possibility to stay on campus past freshman year in a leadership role in the LLC. The RLCs D24 looked at require a 2 year on-campus commitment, which has its pros and cons.
D24 found to her dismay that all the LLCs/RLCs she applied to (you can apply to 3 at first) had additional essays to write, so don’t think you will sit down and quickly knock out the housing app if a student is interested in these.
Another wrinkle for D24 is that some of them have an expiration date on the acceptance, so if you have a roommate in mind, both should apply around the same time (it takes around 2 weeks to get an answer back). D24 is likely going to have to decline an RLC she was interested in because her friend & potential roommate isn’t on the same timeline right now. I do not know if some of the LLC/RLCs always have deadlines for acceptance, or if it is because they are close to filling up or ??
What Bronzerfish said. I’ve learned alot since my initial post!
I’m in the VT Parent FB group, and several of the moderators are huge fans of LLCs. They say students have better results by living in one, but plenty of parents chime in saying kids flourish just fine without being in one. Sounds like some of the engineering ones have benefits since they tend to have group study often.
D24 has decided she’s not very interested in LLCs. She hasn’t applied to any, but if there are additional essays to write, that is a deterrent (not that there is anything wrong with that, but she still has a heavy course load with several APs, playing a sport, applying to scholarships…she’s tapped out on essay writing - and stressing about LLCs isn’t needed). My D’s thinking was she is most looking forward to meeting a wide assortment of students. I understand some of the LLCs are filling up, like Meraki (wellness) - but you still have a fair amount of students that haven’t committed yet so I’m sure there are still plenty of spots. Seems to me some kids chose LLC’s based off the dorm locations - it’s a way to guarantee getting into a newer/nicer dorm. As Bronzer said - their roommate has to also be in the LLC - so on one hand, one way to narrow down the roommate search if you don’t have one, but if you have one, they have to be on board with the LLC too.
There is also a different price point for various dorms. Generally speaking, LLCs are in the newer/refurbished dorms, which are more expensive. For example, the Innovate LLC is geared towards Entrepreneurship and is housed in “CID” (new dorm). It’s $4,537 this year. The older, less glamorous non LLC dorms without A/C (which is really only needed the first few weeks - consensus is it’s not a big deal to be without it) is $3,260.
And…don’t feel left behind. I know of a current VT student (sophomore) who didn’t commit until the last minute 2 years ago. I don’t think she had much of a choice for dorms. Ended up basically taking what was available (what some would consider a “bad” dorm), and had a GREAT year.
Please do not feel dorm pressure. My freshman daughter is in one of the “best” dorms, but mentioned that she would have been just as happy in some of the others. There are pros and cons to all of them.
Same, my S24 is also going to pass on LLCs based on extra essays, AP courseload, Varsity Spring Sport, still applying for scholarships to help reduce his OOS tuition costs, etc… Plus when we visited other LLC’s at various schools, he did not click at all with the vibe of those. I think he would also embrace more diversity in meeting people outside his intended area of study, Computational Neuroscience with either CE or CS.
YES! D24 has hit the “application fatigue” stage, writing another essay just isn’t appealing.
Excellent point about prices being PER semester…so that’s a ~$2500/yr difference between one of the LLC dorms and an older dorm. Basically the value of alot of scholarships…without having to write an essay!!
My wife and I were actually reviewing this last night with our S24, and it was torture for him to fill out the rapid-fire (“Match .com” as my wife referred to it) roommate compatibility questions. We told him that we love him, but he won’t melt and doesn’t need AC…
The roommate thing! It IS like a dating app. D24 doesn’t have one or any prospects. She needs to circle back to her profile in the StarRez portal and make sure that’s filled out completely (think she just quickly wrote something initially). While she knows some kids that have found RMs via the Insta profiles, that’s not her thing, so I think she’s just going to roll the dice. We’re OOS too, so every little bit of savings counts, and I’m with you on the A/C… Character building!!
