Anyone know the dates of Bulldog Days for accepted students next month?
April 25, 26, 27 is Bulldog Days.
April 25-27
There was a pdf schedule I could see earlier, but now when I google Bulldog Days 2016, it requires a sign in.
If you get your admit to search for bulldog days, and log in with his email and password, you’ll be able to see the tentative schedule. I just looked and registration starts at 2:00 Monday and ends with a pizza party at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
New question (well I’m sure it’s been discussed previously but I’m not sure how much year to year may change a response.
What is the take on the meal plans at Yale?
I say this knowing my son (as is true for many teen guys) is a walking eating machine…there isn’t much he WONT eat but I’m hoping that there are healthy alternatives to the typical college cuisine.
He’s an athlete so healthy alternatives are preferred.
I don’t recall his impression of the dining halls after his OV this past fall.
AND…how expensive is it to supplement the plan with extra swipes? Or is that even necessary?
Thanks!
@tonymom IIRC freshmen don’t have a choice of plans, and they are on a full mean plan with double swipes allowed at lunch. It’s all you can eat so the double swipes only come in to play if a students wants to eat the same meal at more than one location. When the sports teams travel they provide meals and/or meal money.
DS reports that the food is dramatically worse than when he was first on campus. He thinks the problem is the school’s cost cutting measures wherein they no longer cook at each dining hall. The food is prepared at a few central locations, and then reheated locally. DS put the previously high quality food as a positive for Yale, but no longer.
I would get what you have to get, and supplement with money for local for-profit eateries, which are plentiful and high quality. I would not pay for additional swipes.
Next year, DS will be living off campus (technically, it’s actually closer to most of his classes than his dorm is) for the opportunity to cook, or so he says :))
I differ from Ixnay and canoe on this one. It’s confusingly worded on the Yale meal plan website, and we didn’t realize it until spring semester last year, but freshmen can sign up for the optional Anytime Meal Plan, which will give your bottomless pit as much food as he needs. It’s a bargain at an extra $75/semester; my kid would go through that in two weeks off campus. The unlimited swipes in the main dining halls means they can eat nearly all day long, and my guy really likes the dining points because he can get late night coffee and carbs. I haven’t had to send an emergency Amazon case of snacks all year. 
http://www.yale.edu/dining/options/mealplan.html#where
And there are lots of healthy food options.
^totally agree! We upgraded to the unlimited plan for $75 and it is totally worth it. But, for us, we still send up packs of snacks for late night munchies! The dining halls aren’t open at 11pm, for example, and he kept running to Durfees for snacks.
Another perk of the Anytime Meal Plan in addition to the unlimited meal swipes is it includes $70 in Eli Bucks which almost makes up for the additional $75 it costs to upgrade. I will say that due to the limited dining hall hours, my son really only double swipes for an early and a late lunch. He also wishes there was a light night meal plan dining option as Durfees is quite pricey for what you get so the Eli bucks don’t last long.
@tonymom - I think Yale makes a great effort to provide healthy food compared to other schools. During Thanksgiving break, my son spent a couple of days with friends at Purdue and we asked, “So what’s the difference between Purdue and Yale?” He said, “Yale doesn’t have chocolate milk and Purdue doesn’t have kale.”
One bummer is that my son tried to break himself of soda before freshman year because he knew that soda machine would be RIGHT THERE at every meal. But he is back on the soda train because the water in New Haven is highly chlorinated (judging by the taste) and the only water available in the dining halls is infused with fruit to cover the taste of the chlorine and he doesn’t care for that.
My daughter is a forager and she will hit up the buttery for late night food. She is never hungry but she does use her swipes at Durfees on occassion when she has had too much at one meal and wont have time to get to the dining hall during normal hours. I did not know about the $75 and I suspect that she would definitely love that. I know she would use the eli bucks and that would pay for the plan itself.
I didn’t realize that Yale didn’t have chocolate milk…funny because my h.s. senior and I were just talking about that. He told me the best thing about his Cornell visit was the unlimited chocolate milk, and I assured him that pretty much all colleges had that–not Yale I guess! Bummer… the perfect post-workout food.
My sophomore told me that his Eli bucks lasted for the whole semester, but he’s a major tightwad, and come to think of it, we have supplemented him with some gift cards to Paneras, so that might be helping. It definitely helps if they eat all of their regular meals at the dining hall, which is more or less a default for athletes post-practice. Or maybe he’s stealing food from his suitemates…I try not to think too much about it. 
Any parents out there who have gone to previous graduations?..trying to figure out how long class day (graduation weekend) usually lasts…trying to finalize plans! thanks
Never mind…its 2.5 hours on average for class day on May 22!
Thanks for the foodie feedback! So sounds as if food is not fantastic but there are alternatives and economic ways to supplement.
@classicalmama my kiddo was also impressed with the free flowing chocolate mile machines at Cornell. I guess a perk of living in the beautiful countryside…
But I reminded him he isn’t going to college to drink delicious chocolate milk…as tempting as that prospect may be 
So here is another scoop on the food. My daughter loves it. She sends me photos of big salads and salmon not to mention different ethnic foods on occasion. She knows its not home cooked food and there are some days she is not thrilled because it has carrots which she is allergic to or she is not into what they are offering but all in all she is happy with it. There is always a selection of items that she can choose from. I guess if you are expecting a menu to choose from, have prior years to compare to or if you are generally picky it could be disappointing but she is happy with it. I told her about the $75 deal and she was excited so that says a lot in itself.
FWIW my son is fairly picky and he seems to find something to satisfy him at mealtime. As I mentioned earlier his biggest complaint is the lack of a late night dining option covered by the meal plan. For any of he new parents that are curious, there is a Yale Dining app you can download to view the daily menu. Many students also visit The Commons Dining hall (which is only open for lunch) for a little variety. Plus, there’s always pizza at Stiles and Morse which also seem to have slightly different dining hours.
My D went to Yale as a vegan so her only complaint was that there was not a lot of variety even though there are vegan options at every meal. She eats vegetarian now while at school so she can eat more, still vegan at home for the most part. Of course she says it is not cooked and seasoned like home, but she does not have any major complaints.
Re. Chocolate Milk: my DS informed me today, when I asked whether such a shocking truth (no chocolate milk) could be true, “I promise I had chocolate milk during YES-W at Jonathan Edwards, and I think there was some at Slifka also.” This is probably the most important topic to be discussed on CC, so I felt I should report.