Drew Sweet is a freshman who, after his first quarter at Ohio State, has learned a lesson about meal swipes. Sweet and his roommates, Seth Radley and Nick Daugherty, had compiled a reserve of almost 150 swipes the week before Autumn Quarter exams began, the equivalent of a full quarter’s “Scarlet Plus” mean plan.
The roommates’ combined leftover swipes were worth roughly $1,300. But swipes don’t roll over from one quarter to the next and unused swipes simply disappear at the quarter’s end.
For many incoming students, it is difficult to gauge how many swipes they will need in their first quarter away, and it’s easy to get too many.
“For most days, I only ate one to two meals, hardly ever three,” Sweet said about his first quarter.
Sweet was also sick for four days at the beginning of the quarter, rarely using his swipes. In addition, the Thanksgiving break “killed ‘swipe time’ for a week,” he said.
To combat wasting their swipes, the roommates started thinking creatively about how to use them.
Daugherty used his remaining swipes by taking his parents to dinner at the Blackwell Inn, which offers fine dining options for swipes. The ViewPoint restaurant at the Drake Union also offers sit-down dining with a five-swipe minimum.
Radley bulked up on groceries at the Marketplace on Neil. In one of his spending sprees, he grabbed a 24-pack of Vitamin Water, several boxes of pizza rolls and ice cream.
Marketplace is a hotbed for activity during the last few weeks of the quarter. Students come in droves for the selection of food, and especially for its groceries.
Groceries are a common buy since they are often nonperishable and can have high swipe value. For example, a 24-pack of Vitamin Water is seven swipes.
“So many students save swipes until the end of the quarter, and then try to get rid of them at the end,” said Hannah MacDowell, a cashier at Marketplace and fourth-year in psychology.
MacDowell has been working at Marketplace for two years and said it is always busier during the last week of the quarter because people have so many swipes left.
On the day before Autumn Quarter finals began, someone still had 165 swipes left, MacDowell said.
First-year Kelsey Gallagher and her classmates in Public Affairs 240 came up with an alternative and altruistic way to deal with leftover swipes.
In an effort to “swipeout hunger,” the class bought nonperishable food items and donated them to a local food bank, Gallager said.
While groceries can be an easy way to spend swipes, the number of that can be used on groceries is limited to 20 percent.
Another way to use swipes is to buy meals for friends, which Sweet did several times.
“This time of year is my favorite,” said Michael Rudy, a recent OSU graduate. “I get to go out to eat with my friends and don’t need to spend any money.”
