I saw an older thread where someone asked this but that was for a convention the school was taking the students to, so: do any parents go to UCAS conventions or is that weird? DS' school isn't taking them so he's booked on it independently and said he's happy for my company since I don't think any if his mates are going (they don't seem to be thinking about uni yet but are in year 12). DS knows there are some uni's that he might consider but wouldn't be able to attend their open days as they seem to be on the same dates or are too far away to travel to all of them. He was planning to have a chat with them at the UCAS convention so I'm hoping you'll all say that a UCAS convention was useful for your DCs. DS said he'd be happy for me to come for company but I'm not sure if I'd stick out like an old sore thumb.
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UCAS Convention (without the sixth form school/college)
Sammy3 · 01/06/2015 22:34
Totally agree with PP. We went to look at 12 which is way too many to look at but DS was a bit of a pain last year when attending open days!!
Good Luck, it's a hectic time! 
I went with ds because his college wasn't organising anything. I didn't stick out at all and he found it really useful and came out bursting with enthusiasm.
He knew which stands he wanted to visit so it was very straightforward especially as there was a map on the ucas site setting out which stands were where. I was very impressed at the questions he was asking and did wonder if it was really my ds who is usually rather monosyllabic. On the basis of talking to the reps there, he cancelled one of his open days so only going to 5 now (with around 11 slightly different courses to consider) Only one uni on his list wasn't there. There is a list on ucas of which unis are due to attend which convention.
I really would endorse what milly says about trying to visit the places if at all possible. Ds had a potential clash but one of the unis was also doing an open day in September so he's considering going if he hasn't already decided by the summer hols. He seems to be going somewhere almost every weekend over the next month or so and the nearest is still over 3 hours away but looking beyond the brochures and sales pitches is really important. One of the things being checked out on the open days is checking none of the places smell like school did. 
Dd says there were parents at hers. She says it was good because she knew who she wanted to see and knew what to ask. She also says let your dc. do the asking
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