Which university open days were you most impressed with

[mumma24]

We loved The University of Surrey. Which were you impressed by?

[MissConductUS]

Endicott and Marist Colleges were our favorites, followed by Roger Williams University as a close third.

[MissConductUS]

What did you like so much about Surrey?

[TheSecondOfHerName]

DS (and we) were impressed by Leicester University:

The students seemed enthusiastic and happy to show us around, even though we went towards the end of the day.

The staff took the time to chat with DS about their subject.

Unfortunately it is slightly out of DS's league (his predicted grades are a level below the average offer) but it gives him something to work towards.

[TheSecondOfHerName]

MissConduct did you narrow it down to East Coast schools before visiting?

[Bluntness100]

Reading, they were very well organised and the campus was lovely. However my daughter rejected it and went to Birmingham. Whose open day it would be fair to say was not well organised at all.

Reading tried to sell itself. Birmingham just basically said yeah have a look around. Only the lecturers impressed and did way better than those at reading. Which I guess is a large part of what counts.

[MissConductUS]

Yes, we live in New York and wanted a college within a four or five hour drive. We are fortunate in the the northeast US has such an abundance of fine schools.

[genehuntswife]

Lancaster’s open day was incredible. Me and the hubby want to sell up and go ourselves

[TheSecondOfHerName]

I remember attending an open day at Birmingham University sometime last century. I got lost on the peripheral bus system and it put me off applying there.

I ended up applying to KCL without having visited it, and was very happy there.

[hellsbells99]

I have visited a few with my 2 DCs. I liked most of them. Leeds was very nice - but the sun was shining which helped! Also liked Birmingham (but main accommodation was a bit of a trek away), Nottingham (which my DDs felt was far too quiet), Liverpool (very friendly and liked by all), Cardiff, Bath (but felt a bit claustrophobic), Sheffield (great student union), UEA (loved Norwich). Manchester was a bit too busy but felt 'exciting'. My DD felt Durham was too quiet and wasn't impressed with the facilities for her course and the fact she may have to share a room - but 2 of their friends are there and love it.

[BubblesBuddy]

Our main concerns were that we could get to the open day in good time and see everything we needed to. Planning was vital. Even staying the night before stopped this happening at Exeter due to absurdly long queues for shuttle transport at the park and ride. Hopefully they have improved their car parking and shuttle bus system now but when we went, well over an hour was spent queuing in the car park and DD missed a talk. We got into the car park at 9.15 am so we were hardly late!

I didn’t attend subject lectures anywhere. DCs did though. They were annoyed by parents hogging the questions. However where departmental staff we enthusiastic and pleased to see you it helped. Again, Exeter was a scrum around the stand for DDs subjects. Other places were far more relaxed. DC found Leeds, Bristol, Oxford, LCF and Bath Spa all worthwhile. Durham accommodated DD on a non open day and she was able to chat to a lecturer and look at colleges. Manchester invited DD on an offer day and that was dismal and wholly put her off going there even though they only (unofficially) required 2 A levels for their MLang (MFL) course because they appeared so desperate for students! There were some startling differences in approaches but it does enable DC to get some idea as to how they fit in, or don’t.

[TheDrsDocMartens]

York’s shuttle bus system was very well organised.
Cardiff impressed by how friendly everyone was. Their day was well organised too, lots of people to speak to and good park and ride.

[LoniceraJaponica]

"York’s shuttle bus system was very well organised."

Yes, they had certainly thought about the logistics. Bristol were well organised in that respect as well.

I felt that Warwick had tried the hardest, although DD changed her mind about what she wanted to do after we had been there so Warwick is out now.

Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol and Leicester also made an effort. We were both unimpressed with Manchester. Given the number of people that would be arriving at Piccadilly they hadn't organised the buses very well and people were left waiting in the rain for ages. We couldn't find the bus stop to go back to the station so we walked.

[Petalflowers]

Surrey - liked the campus, well organised, accomadation seemed crowded
Birmingham -liked the old buildings and accommodation.
Aston - quick drive through when visiting Birmingham. I didn’t,t like the feel of the place but dc did
Plymouth - visited on non-open day, quite liked the feel,of the place
UEA - dc and dh really liked, had a nice feel about it
Reading -was dc,s favourite course on paper, was okay, but not spectacular
Nottingham - dc liked this,
Loughborough -quick visit whilst visiting Nottingham, wasn,t that impressed, although heard good things about it

Didn’t,t realised we,d visited so many, but some were a quick,visit whilst in the area, rather than official open days.

[SuccessStory]

To app who’d been to KCL, what was their open day like?

[SuccessStory]

To ‘PP’, I think it was Hellsbells. This IPad does some weird spelling corrections.

[MabelWotsits]

I liked Exeter’s open day, to be fair it was a really sunny day though and we went to a really interesting talk. The campus is stunning.

I thought Warwick were very organised with the park and ride but the man giving the talk was a bit of a dick, kept name dropping “Goldman Sachs / Deloitte” and saying they are to be called Woxbridge now as they are better than the “other two that claim the lesser bit of the name”

Put us right off, most of the audience looked confused rather than impressed.

Loved Bath and Loughborough, and also loved the Birmingham campus but not the city.

[Marlinspike]

It’s a couple of years since we did the rounds, and after a while they all blur into one - but here’s my two penneth.

Glasgow - great, very vibrant city with friendly people, (relatively) cheap halls
Lancaster - didn’t like it - felt very remote from the city and a bit of a concrete monstrosity
Durham - quite arrogant ....assumed everyone would fall over themselves to go there so they wouldn’t have to try too hard.
Aston - small city centre campus, very organised, lots of focus on the placement year. Lovely halls
Newcastle - great atmosphere, lots of halls choice v reasonably priced (this was a couple of years ago - this may have changed)
Liverpool - loved it...although older halls were very shabby & quite a distance
York - too much duck poo!
Surrey - tiny, tiny, expensive bedrooms in halls.
Nottingham - lovely campus, great SU and characterful halls