I'm a 4th yr student at Carleton. I absolutely love res and the school in general. I'm really sad to be leaving this week.

On-campus living is pretty good. There are different buildings for students in different years, so I've lived on res every single year. We have 10 residence buildings:

Leeds
Frontenac
Lennox/Addington
Grenville
Russell
Prescott
Dundas
Stormont
Glengarry
Lanark

Leeds is for upper year students (3rd, 4th yr, and grad students), Frontenac is for 2nd yrs, and the rest are open to 1st year students. A lot of people live on res for 1st year and then tend to move out to off-campus housing after that. We have a pretty good res community, and living on res is a really good experience. I don't think I know anyone who regrets living here during at least 1st year.

Our meal plan cafeteria is actually the 2nd best ranked caf in all of Ontario (2nd only to U of Guelph). How our meal plan works is you pick a plan based on how many meals you figure you'll eat in a week inside the caf (the meal plans range from 5-19 meals a week). When you go to the caf you just swipe your card to get in, and then once you're in, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet style caf with a number of different meal options during the week. There are a bunch of other places on campus where you can also eat, but you pay for each individual item at those places. Leeds, Frontenac, and Prescott are suite style buildings were you will have a kitchen, so if you live in one of those buildings, you can also cook your own food.

I want to know as well because I am heading to Carleton next year!! :)

I live in the Ottawa area but I decided to live on rez at Carleton. As far as the meal plan work you basically have a limit each week plus dining dollars. The number of meals you are allocated are to be used in the rez dining hall and the dining dollars can be used anywhere else on campus. For example, I think plan A has 14 meals/week and 100 dining dollars. This means every week you can eat 14 meals in the dining hall. Monday at midnight they clear them and you get 14 more for the next week. The dining dollars is the total amount for the entire year, which means if you got plan A you would have $50/term. If you don't use all the dining dollars first semester, they carry to second semester.

Does this make sense?

Hey there, I was actually pretty impressed with my tour of Carleton this summer, even though I visited a bunch of other schools (Ryerson, U of T, Waterloo, Queen's). Carleton's tour guide was the nicest, most thorough and Carleton gave the most free stuff ;). Actually though, they gave each person on the tour a free meal ticket for the cafeteria so we could try it out ourselves and the food was actually awesome for a residence. I also stayed a night at the Queen's residence and the room I stayed in wasn't very nice in comparison to the Carleton dorms. I spent a week in the Waterloo dorms and they were much nicer than Queen's and pretty comparable to Carleton's.
In other news, can't wait for September.

I actually went with plan C just because of the timing of my classes. It was good, I actually ended up with more dining dollars towards the end but I just bought more stuff around exam time. I lived in Dundas. It was good, it's not as updated as the others but it's nothing bad. Dundas also has the quiet floor if that's something your interested in. I also got involved in res volunteering so I met a lot of people that way. My roommate was good. We weren't best friends or anything but she was neat and respectful and we got along well. You also meet a lot of people in your building as well so that opens up your circle of friends.

If you're honest with your roommate, most of the issues you can solve on your own. Also being respectful and being quiet when their sleeping and stuff goes a long way. If there are major issues you have your rez fellows who can also help you out.

Also, apparently we have the best food in Ontario or out of all the Canadian universities or something. Not exactly sure. Point is, we have good food and there are a lot of options too.