Argument brewing with DH (teenager DD and holiday)

[PardontheFrench]

I’m going to try and keep this quite short and hopefully unbiased as I do see DH’s point of view and actually maybe all I need is a little more advice on Y13 and what we should be prioritising.

Teenage daughter is 17 and starting to Y13 in September, very creative and smart girl who is considering her uni options just now. Unfortunately we missed June’s uni open days so we have made a point of saying that that we will prioritise October’s which I presume from looking online will be her (and our) last opportunity before she needs to apply.

DD’s partners family have been in touch to kindly ask if DD would like to go on holiday with them also in October. I think likely this will fall in the same window as the open days.

DH is a yes guy and I know is going to push to make this happen.

I’m a “I’d love for this to happen, I like my children to have all/any experience they can have but I feel uni choices are quite fucking important and she has her entire life to go on holiday” guy.

We are still in the listening to each others points of view stage but know I’m getting frustrated with him and sure he is with me too so I wondered.

How important are Uni open days (I didn’t go)

Would you be on board with your A level kid going away on holiday a month or so from mocks.

Is this a year for knuckling down and having exams and university places at the forefront or am I being mean and we should biting the hand off an opportunity for her?

(so not to drip feed, we would be contributing financially, DD is very clever but does and will need to to work hard for the results that she wants)

We found the open days essential sorry. She can go on holiday anytime in her life. I would prioritise those.

My view is that they need to decide what they want to do then look at course rankings of the unis that offer that course and then look online to see which ones they are interested in.

Other things to decide are do they want RG (regardless of course), campus uni, big city, how far from home do they want to be/does it matter to them or you etc.

In other words try and narrow it down. I expect, bright, she's got some on her preferred list anyway as well as some she's definitely not interested in.

I am refusing to trek around the country until DC decide what they want to do. It's expensive and time consuming and I'm not convinced of the value. In fact because there's a high chance that DC will do a gap year we're thinking we might not apply at all and then go grades in hand and the new 3 question personal statement.

Exactly - you won’t get a genuine insight from one day showcased to make the place look good anyway. Pick a uni with a good reputation in the league tables, a course that looks interesting and you will likely have just as good a time there as anywhere you might have chosen after painstakingly attending numerous open days across the country. Also with Clearing/Adjustment, you might end up going somewhere totally different anyway if your grades are better or worse than you thought they would be.

We found the open days really valuable. You got a feel for the different departments. You can talk to students actually doing the course. You can work out the best hall
of residence to apply for. We avoided a massive mistake by going to the open day the university webpage was very misleading about dds course it basically barely existed as we found out on the open day. The course at the other university was large and thriving.

I do think parents like them tbf. But I am alarmed at the amount of input parents seem to have in their near-adult’s education choices. In fact, when I man the stands at open days, 80% of the questions are from parents (or from teens that have obviously been told by their parents to ask a particular question). I alway joke that maybe they should do the course instead. I guess it makes sense now that uni is such a huge outlay. But when I went to uni, my mum and dad had absolutely no input into where i applied and had i gone to an open day it would have been without them.

A levels are tough. A break will do her good, she herself will know she’ll have to knuckle down.

I agree that a couple of Open Days are really handy to help them understand what they want to prioritise about a uni (nice town, campus, distance from home) and if it is the right course (lots of open days have introductions to their subjects, what facilities they have etc) - it makes researching online much easier - so you don't necessarily have to visit them all.

As your daughter wants to go, you would like her to go, and it is only for a week, then go she does.
Yes, it is the right decision. I hope she has a good time.

Our Dd asked the questions not us 🙄🙄 but thanks for the sneer.

Dd was concerned as she’s doing a MFL combined degree with a year abroad that the course was large enough that she would have mates on her course to hang out with in the fourth year. The lovely student on the stand who was graduating the same course could reassure her on that.

At 17 she’s old enough to make her own decision on this

I did say 80%… There are some students who do ask questions of course but there are countless ones who look bored while their mum asks how many contact hours they have a week. We have huge issues with attendance and ability to be self-motivated so something is going wrong somewhere. I’m pleased you found it helpful.

I agree with this. After putting a couple of my kids through uni, we tended to focus on the post offer day more.
Plus it was expensive to travel round to all the open days of unis that they quite fancied the look of !
We found the online tours really helpful.?

In my city, they have a uni fair in the local uni.

All the universities from across the country go. All the post 16’s go to that.

Speaking from my own experience only, I went to a few open days but didn't really take that much from them.

I ultimately picked a uni in a city I had never stepped foot in before, but what I did base it on was

1. Reputation.
2. Course requirements and results.
3. Reading lots of reviews/listening to people who went there, or knew someone who did.
4. Public transport system.
5. Proximity to home - I wanted to be far enough that my parents couldn't "drop in", but not too far to make going home a total pain involving 8 hours of coach trip and cancelled trains. Also near enough that I would occasionally get taken home.
6. Student area - I knew I wanted a proper "student" experience with lots and lots of other students and a thriving student life, not just a quiet time in a small town. Some of my friends wanted the opposite - they did want a quiet time in a smaller uni.

Check out OpenDays.com. Most of the universities offer open days from 1 sept through to December. Most are at the weekends. Many also do virtual open days and then bookable tours throughout the year (eg some of the london colleges). Just prioritise the ones she serious about.

So, no issue about not doing them in half term week. IMHO She should take the opportunity to travel. When she has her UCAS offers there will be taster/offer days too so she can re visit them after her A Level exams.

I would probably go on the holiday and chance it for the open days to be at other times. If the holiday happens to fall on the open day I would do some research online about the unis she wants to apply for and arrange to do a day/ weekend visit to each city and walk around the uni campus and accommodation. For almost alll unis you can do that no problem and you will be able to find course information in the prospectus.

I don’t remember anything about the uni open days I went to apart from the bits where I looked around the uni campus and city centre with the friends I visited with. I always felt it was more about getting the vibe of the area and if that felt like a good fit to me, rather than the academic component of the university itself (I have been to 3 separate unis and done undergrad, masters and doctoral level training and have always done it this way).

I think a holiday before mocks is a good opportunity to destress a little before really knuckling down and working like hell on the exams. You don't want her to burn out being all work and no fun for the whole year.

Help her find uni's that she is interested in and then visit the 5 that she puts as her choices if she gets offers.

DS only did one open day in the end and he is very happy with his choice.

None of our open days were over half term, so they may well not coincide.

Or do you mean she’s going on a term-time holiday in year 13? If that’s the case, I think that’s a really bad idea!

You're being too controlling here. Most unis have two options at least for open days and worst case scenario you can usually visit on another day too.

Glad my parents were what you nowadays call "neglectful".
At your daughter's age I was quite mature and able to make life changing decisions for myself, let alone going on a measly holiday for couple of weeks.
Needless to say, I made a very good life for myself.
Wasn't taken by my hand and guided once.
👍😁

I think going to uni open days was really useful, particularly the ones where the students showed you round and talked about accommodation and social life etc. It definitely helped me to decide where I wanted to go.

Update.

After a few comments regarding finding out the key information before making a decision, length of holiday, if it does indeed run over chosen uni open days.

We have now found out it is a week out with the October break so missing a week of school…

Would that make a difference to anyone?

I would most definitely not take a Year 13 student out of school in October.

Yeah i agree with this.
He's not her “partner”. He's another kid shes dating.
Open days aren't actually massively important BUT I’d be more concerned about the principle actually - that shes prioritising a trip with a teenage boyfriend over the excitement of choosing her university.

In a couple of years this guy will most likely be a fond little memory and her life will be filled with all the uni stuff - new friends, boyfriends, work, lectures etc. I’d be inclined to encourage her not to become too emeshed in her life with him.

It would be a big no from me to allow a holiday in term time in Y13. If it was half term it would be fine because most of the open days would already have taken place. They often start in September so get her to do her research now.