Offer holder visit days- what do your DCs expect?

[NickyNicky]

I've NC because this is potentially quite outing.

I hope I'm not being too cheeky posting here. I'm an academic and admissions tutor for a social science degree at a Russell Group university.

Next week we are hosting visit days for offer holders. The offer holders spend the morning with tours of the university, talks from the Union etc. then the afternoon is subject-specific sessions. In these sessions we do talks about the degree and example teaching.

I think they work well but I'm never sure (and University is blocking us doing research for all sorts of reasons). What I'd really like to know is what do your DCs want from their subject-specific sessions when they come to an offer-holder day?

Any thoughts on this are really gratefully received

There are stats on that

That’s just it though, kitten - the universities themselves strive hard to dispel myths that they aren’t elitist institutions reserved for those born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I despair that all their work is unfortunately made all the more difficult by people (on here and some attending said universities) braying about what school they attended or crowing about internships arranged by mummy and daddy’s vast networks of similar snooty chums - essentially things that set them apart from the common people. I’ve seen it with my own eyes 👀

Bubbles is a prime example

It was quite a blessing for DD to go to a Bristol open day and come away unimpressed. She felt that she had the power of discernment :).

I don't think Bubbles speaks for a majority of independent pupils even. DD is there, but Bristol was not that popular a choice from her school. Indeed she is the first to take to take her subject there in a decade.

She is a Londoner who wanted somewhere urban but not London. And somewhere that was likely to offer her a place. Scotland took an extra year and there were issues with a couple of other places. Bristol ticked the most boxes.

The big thing that put her off was the reputation. Lots of mini-bubbles have such fun with their ex-boarding school buddies.

Others should not worry thpugh. DD confirms you don't meet them unless you want to. Or if you live in Wills. They tend to have a lot more money so live a different life. DDs course has a surprising number from Northern Ireland and Northern England. Ditto her sport. One of her team mates is teased gently for being 'posh'. DD reports that she has escaped this. A case of being who you are rather than highlighting where you come from.

Perhaps just as well DD did not go to an Open day at Bristol. It sounds awful. The students she met at interview were nice.

Wow, so many responses! Thank you so much everyone.

On the student helpers issue... well, how long have you got?

The central admissions team don't recruit helpers for visit days, only open days. So, departments have to recruit their own helpers. We do pay but we're only allowed to pay in vouchers because the role is technically a 'volunteer' role to get around Visa issues.

We have a couple of helpers who are recruited at the start of the year who help us loads will various admissions events. They're recruited very professionally (applications, interviews etc.) but we didn't have that many applicants for these roles. I have no idea why. Anyway, when it comes to visit days, we need about six helpers to deal with the number of visitors so we have to recruit more people ad hoc.

These comments are all so incredibly useful, please keep 'em coming

My plan for the subject session is to firstly give a summary of the degree. Some of this is repeated from pre-application open days but we get a lot of students who only come to visit days so we can't assume everyone's heard it before.

Then there's an hour for a sample teaching session. I'm going to do something creative and interactive for this rather than just a standard lecture.

Then we have another two hours, which is just impossible for us to fill. I get that departments with labs and the like can fill it with tours but we can't. So I've ordered come tea/coffee and cake and just mingle around with students and parents.

For those asking about Saturdays- we do pre-application open days on Saturdays in July and September but not visit days. We really struggle to get staff to commit to the two Saturday open days as it is- I think there'd be actual mutiny if we added in another Saturday commitment

The sample lecture has to be delivered by someone competent! DS turned down an offer from a university he liked the look of because the sample lecture was so awful - kept making mistakes and going back over the same material.

My son and I attended an Offer Day for social sciences on Sat.
First part was a group lecture covering course details - pretty similar to the open day.
Various lecturers spoke, some more interesting than others!
Also the admissions tutor for the dept who was very informative.
The star of the show was a third year student who talked about her reasons for choosing this particular Uni and course and how she'd found it so far. Much less of a 'sales pitch' and much more about the reality of being a student.
The parents and young people were separated - sample lectures offered which my son found v interesting. Opportunity to ask questions in a smaller group setting.
Parents could then ask all the questions they wanted, without fear of embarrassing their offspring.
Refreshments served - lecturers, students and admissions guy stayed to chat to parents. V relaxed.
Campus and accommodation tour followed. All in all about 4 hours.
The students were definitely the best advert for the Uni and I felt it had been a worthwhile use of our time.
We're due to go to Bristol soon. It's probably my son's last choice but I must admit I feel we should go, if only to find out what all the hype is about on MN!

Your course talk has to be why your course and assessment structure is better than everyone else’s; ditto your city and accommodation talks. You have to sell your year abroad/year industry opportuntities, together with hard facts about graduate destinations.

What swung it for DD at Edinburgh was that the four years meant she could do loads of outside courses in the first two years. What she liked about Southampton was that there were so many modules available, that she could design a bespoke degree.

What DD1liked about Newcastle was that it was a vibrant 7 day a week uni in a campus in the city, with amazing countryside. She firmed ?Sheffield over NCL based on academic reputation.

DS1 chose UCL for academics and did not paritcularly want to be in London, but grew to love it.

Actual sample lectures are good for pre-UCAS, but the practicalities and comparisons are what are required for Offer holder days.

DD was disappointed at UCL because of an ill-prepared sample economics lecture that had typos on the slides in addition to the lecturer not being particularly eloquent or engaging.

The personal digs at a single poster are unpleasant.

Also Paris you've incorrectly id'd the poster in question so basically no, perchance. (Who even uses the phrase perchance?!).

Out of seven DC to have gone to uni only one - DS3 - went to offer holders days, none of the others did and they're not independent school DC so that wasn't it. They just didn't see the point whereas DS3 wasn't sure which uni to use as his insurance. He happened to really like Bristol but the Durham history dept really messed up their logistics so he came away very underwhelmed on the departmental front and went with Bristol instead, largely because of the shambles at Durham.

I am sure your DS, needmore, looked at the universities which his A level predictions suggested would be a good fit. Therefore, beside LSE, where else did he actively look? A lot of highly qualified students know their worth and don’t need to look far and wide.

I did not say Oxbridge hopefuls did not need to look anywhere else. Far from it. Obviously that would be ludicrous but given that they are considered the best of the best at their school, they shouldn’t need to spend time looking at a dozen other universities.

I think the personal attacks on me are a bit too personal and not helpful to anyone really. I have just tried to explain things as I see them but if you don’t agree, that’s fine, but I think some of the rubbish written about me is bizarre and also untrue.

Bubbles, the problem might be that your experience may be of a small minority of more affluent Bristol students. Which is not invalid in itself. However it might be worth being clear that the experience of others, even at the same University, will be very different.

My post was clear. Neither of my DC got to go to offer days as the offers they got came through too late. (Plus neither had a lot of choice!). This will be true of others, including those living overseas, and those gaining places via clearing or adjustment. I described the LSE reception day. I think it has been valuable to know a little about the services offered by DS University so I can encourage him to use them. It is perhaps a shame that I would have no idea what to advise should, say, DD need welfare support.

Thank you goodbye. Your intervention was much appreciated.

As parents we have all talked through applications with our children and have no doubt all come to different conclusions about where to apply and some will have sifted through mounds of info and compared every nuance and others will have done far less and don’t go to offer days. No one way is correct and all sorts of reasons are factored into choices not least some students wanting to avoid independently educated students no doubt!

However branding people as needing to be avoided isn’t good for life or future work when it’s pretty important to get on and mix. Many students choose a university based perceived tribe whether that’s at the local ex college of HE or somewhere else. If local is important, that’s a valid reason.

The only reason DD went to the MLang offer day was to see how it differed from the standard BA degrees. That was a reasonably valid reason to go.

"Out of seven DC to have gone to uni only one - DS3 - went to offer holders days"

But all of your children are at Oxbridge universities and knew they would go there regardless. I don't know anyone with multiple children at Oxbridge universities. You must admit that your family are pretty unique.

Those of us with non Oxbridge shaped children are far more likely to go to offer days, especially if they aren't sure which university they want to spend the next few years of their life in. And in DD's case, if she gets into medical school, it will be 5 years.

I had no idea until reading on here that Bristol had a lot of privately educated students. DD didn't like it because she has an ongoing problem with her knees and it was too hilly. She also found Bristol too big and too busy - same with Manchester. She wants a city university, but somewhere a little smaller than those 2 cities.

Needmore: I would say though that some universities do have very high numbers of independently educated students - over 50%. Why do you think that is?

The stats are widely available on which universities have the most and least privately educated students. If it didn’t matter to your Dd, Lonicera, then it didn’t matter. It may matter to others though. It’s all part of the individual jigsaw isn’t it?

I know several families where Oxbridge (one or the other) runs in families. They are all just impressively bright! However the argument used against me above was that Oxbridge hopefuls must look elsewhere and would be stupid not to. Now Lonicera is saying that goodbye’s children were going to Oxford regardless! Which is it?

Bubbles - you have many useful things to say, but you can also come across as terribly snobby (and I've definitely felt that you've been rude to me, although not as rude as the lawyer alluded to upthread!) and as far as I can ascertain, no longer have children in higher education. I think it probably is useful for other people to know that, so they can take some of your more biased-sounding or out-of-date advice with a pinch of salt.

I'm not going to apologise, but thank you again, you really did give me a good laugh earlier

Bubbles it never even occurred to us to consider whether students were privately educated or not. We were just looking at universities that DD might have been interested in.

Oops, posted too early. What I meant was if a student had an Oxbridge offer and that was what they wanted why would they go to an offer day at another university?

Maybe goodbye's children didn't go to offer holder days because they already had their Oxford offers and were pretty confident of achieving them. My comment about looking elsewhere was in response to you saying that Bristol wannabes decide early on in the process that that's where they want to go, and that Oxbridge candidates are probably similar - in fact I think Oxbridge candidates are usually quite careful not to get fixated on just one university, because they have to be aware they have a high chance of not getting in.

One of DD's friends has an Oxford offer and won't even consider a plan B. He is a nice lad, but IMO getting a bit cocky about getting an Oxford offer. He is very confident he will get in. He is also one of those irritating people who gets consistent As with very little effort.

With some courses Lonicera lots of oxbridge students don't make their offers. Around half of cambridge maths applicants don't.