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

OhYouBadBadKitten Cambridge maths is almost unique in over offering within Oxbridge.

Well a few of you appear to know my DCs' psychology better than I do myself but at the risk of sticking my neck out I'd say that since they also didn't go to any pre-application open days it has more to do with our poor transport links and the fact that their school only allows two days off in total for these visits than anything else. My own view has always been that the school has a point - the websites pretty much do the job and tell you the key things you need to know - and that's been bolstered by my own relief at saving money and hassle.

Well, unique in the extent to which it over offers.

The best one we went to, the students were split from parents. Parents could go to an example lecture, look at accommodation, talk to student services, etc, or go and have a quiet coffee somewhere if they wanted to. Students went off together for a tour of facilities and accommodation, subject talks, general 'what it's like to be a student here' talks, etc. They also had lunch with the other students, not their parents. DD was really enthusiastic by the end of the day.

maths is only unique by its extent, other courses like nat sci also over offer.

I've just said that Kitten, in terms.

Don't most courses over offer? Medicine does.

Oxford and Cambridge don't over offer in the same way Lonicera, with the notable exception of Cambridge maths which uses STEP to whittle the field down.

Jumping in here a bit late but agree with someone up thread about the lecturers on the day. DD was quite keen on one university but the short taster lecture given was so awful that this was one of the reasons she chose the other university she was considering (equal offers) as the lecturer was engaging and really interesting.

Whatever is offered on the day, it's useful to make it crystal clear in advance.

At two of our look-around days, the departments had generously laid on buffet lunches (wow!) but we had not known this was going to happen.

At the first uni, we'd already planned to join a presentation about halls of residence, therefore couldn't join in the lunch.

At the 2nd uni, we had already bought an overpriced lunch elsewhere.

At both places, we would have loved to have known about the department complimentary lunch beforehand.

*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.*

Who are they using for campus tours, widening participation events, visits from schools...? Without knowing which university it is that you're working for, it's impossible to know the structure of your various departments, but I would say it's unusual for the admissions office to be recruiting and managing student ambassadors. Have you checked if there's a separate student recruitment, or even widening participation team?

Only paying in vouchers is someone's administrative laziness. There's no reason why you couldn't either (a) open the role only to students on UK/EU passports, or (b) use the fact that Tier 4 visas allow students to work up to 20 hours per week in term time. Both RG universities that I've worked at used UK/EU and international students on their ambassador programmes with no visa related problems. I'm no lawyer, but having the vouchers also likely means that it's not legally volunteering anyway, and you need to pay minimum wage and have just as many visa issues www.gov.uk/volunteering/pay-and-expenses

The helpers you've recruited at the start of the year sound like the very basics of a workable ambassador scheme. When you readvertise, make sure you put out an email to all UG students, posters in the department, student facebook groups, tell students at the start of lectures (yourself and some willing colleagues!) and you could even do a refer-a-friend bonus to get existing helpers telling their friends about it. Every student should hear about the programme several times over! And convert some of the more capable (or potentially capable) ad hoc ones to be ongoing helpers.

Sort the pay issue out, advertise the helper scheme better (actually, rename it, helper sounds rather belittling) with the formal application forms, interviews, training and so on, and you'll have a passable group of ambassadors who can staff the events on a more reliable basis. Do it right and you'll give them experience that's worth putting on their CVs and will enhance their employability (and hence look better in the league tables...)

My ethnic minority daughter chose Edinburgh over Bristol for Computer Science since Edinburgh had plenty of female, ethnic minority and international representation on their presentation slides and the lecturer giving the presentation was female. She was particularly impressed by the stories of students setting up companies during their final years at the Uni, some of whom were female.

Bristol had a perfectly nice and competent white male, giving a presentation with images of mostly white males in a room full of mostly male applicants.

It might not have been an issue for her for any other subject, and at her London 6th form, most of her friends were male, however since females are a small minority in computer science, it made a difference.

Bristol sent her a handwritten, personalised postcard telling her how much they wanted her and how impressed they were with her interview, but I guess it was a case of "show me, don't tell me" when it came down to where she could see herself spending 3-4 years.

Edinburgh had its disadvantages (distance from London, 4 year course vs 3 year course) but she just felt it was where she'd be happier.

I give up. Goodbyestranger you would argue with your own shadow.

I'm not aware of any argument OhYouBadBadKitten - is there one? Do you mean my comment about Cambridge maths - that's fact I think. Cheer up! :)

One of my DC had a Cam maths offer so offer days were important in choosing an insurance which he was quite likely to end up at.
He rejected Durham because the course was very inflexible and he didn't actually like anything about the uni (hadn't been on an open day). Their offer day actually included an overnight stay in college so he was able to get a real feel for the place.

Just been to another Offer day at Surrey. Fantastic lecture, very delicious lunch, but I think it would have been nice if there had been a shuttle bus from the train (we missed the beginning because we got lost) taking us the right part of the campus (big big campus) The offer day started exactly at 9.30 so it would have only had to be 2 trips of the bus to fit everyone in who had come on public transport (which they were making a big issue of us all using)
The signage was not good for pedestrians at the main entrance, and assumed cars.
The parents and children were kept together for a lot of the tour, and I think it would have been better if they had split us earlier as it was such a long day to be traipsing around (I arrived at 9.45 and left at 4pm) But lecture on his subject was superb, plus an interview so I cannot really fault the impression of the course itself.

But another parent did say that they felt confused and exhausted by getting lost on campus too many times, and losing track of where their child was, and that there were too many applicants invited for one mass offer day ( I think other unis tend to have different days for different batches of subjects)

I liked the labels showing which subject your child was planning to study, but thought the parents should have had them too, so we could see who the parents who were accompanying same subject students were ifysim. So we could compare notes. A social lunch was brilliant though, a lot of comparisons of different unis our children had already put on their lists.

Thanks for everyone's comments so far, these are really helpful.

I ran an offer day on Wednesday. I gave one of the sample lectures and I think it went really well- I know I'm a good lecturer! Unfortunately the sample lecture my colleague gave was a bit dry. However, marshalling colleagues to come along is difficult enough without then asking them to prepare teaching materials. So I have to take what I can get That's a whole other issue.

Any more comments and experiences, most welcome.

At the lecture we went to, the lecturer made us all laugh throughout, although it was a very intellectual lecture. I was gripped yet know nothing about the subject. And it had an element of interaction. Now I know that most lectures aren't meant to be song and dance routines, but it makes a difference if you are attracting people (and swaying their parents) at an applicants' day. As a department I felt you could not fault them, it was more the admin of the uni as a whole that was slightly offputting -little details like there not being enough plastic cups for us to drink out of at lunch, or the signage from the entrance.

If I were a prewarned savvy applicant, I would want to know a bit more detail about how the course was assessed and the effectivenesss and quality of the system for giving back results and feedback including how long it takes, moderation etc. If you have a good department for that then a student speaker recounting their experience would be most convincing
A stimulating lecture reassures for the quality of the staff and that the delivery of taught material will be good. However a key point for studying a degree is learning how to improve. That is easier in the Oxbridge system to deliver because of tutorial feedback on problems and essays. Universities with poor scores on student satisfaction surveys for assessment and feedback can have fairly shambolic systems where marking and feedback can be too late to be useful for the next stage or comments not helpful as a formative experience.
Sometimes the marking is done by inexperienced PhD students with only minimal moderation and poor marking schemes. That creates problems for transparency and fairness in degree results.
Also if I were savvy applicant, I would like an introduction to the department course administrators as these are the people that students have first contact with when sorting out problems.

DD2 is just back from an offer holder day at Sheffield.

Her thoughts:

• sample lectures, visits to facilities (eg labs if appropriate)
• what does the timetable look like
• tours round accommodation - not just the expensive halls (a repeated complaint from DD)
• talks by current undergraduates not just postgraduates
• information about placement years, what students do and how they got there.

definitely show the worst case scenario for the accommodation, it is quite frustrating for students to think the accommodation will be x, then make the choice quite substantially on this (ie accommodation near campus)without considering the life they will live if they have to take a bus every morning to lectures. Hull was good on accommodation (took us to the distant accommodation as an option), but even they were showing the most expensive on campus as bait - ds was completely wooed by it, without realising it was in short supply (and too expensive)

I think a short applicants' day and optional extras are good for those who are possibly not going to make it their first/second choice but just want to check out things in a bit more detail or haven't attended the Open Day. Course assessment details are good, Surrey included the parents in this and it was very comprehensive and helpful.

I don't think anyone wants to listen to endless talks from students and postgraduates, much better just to grill the people who are showing you round, they are often more revealing about the little things, things that didn't work out or workload. Someone mentioned to me that the top floor flats were way noisier than the middle floor flats. Is anyone going to say that in a formal lecture or accommodation tour?
Surrey gave a long long talk about student finance and work placements, okay maybe helpful if you had never ever heard of student finance implications but do we really need to sit through an hour of being told our degree is SO worth it, and in the same breath be told that the work placements are the things that make students employable, not their degree..mixed messages not.

Some really helpful info here thanks!
I'd love to have our offer days parent-free but we seem to attract clingy parents!
We do Saturday offer days but honestly, as it means my own DCs have to miss their activities (at least one of them as DH can't be in two places at once), I miss a day with them, and my colleague who's a single mum has had to bring her DCs before.
Our department has now said they'll pay for childcare (so my preschool DC is going to have a babysitter while DH takes DC1 to their Saturday classes) but it's still not ideal.

I don't think anyone wants to listen to endless talks from students and postgraduates, much better just to grill the people who are showing you round, they are often more revealing
Endless talks no, short talks (with Q&A) relevant to student satisfaction with course yes (even if applicant is too naive to know what will be important). Academics, office staff and students available to answer individual questions after, yes. Talks on student finance, no, as information is not about a specific university and is available elsewhere.
Opportunity to grill people very much depends on what the staff ratio to offer holders is.

Worstofbothworlds you need to do what Reading did and split the parents and students. It worked well for us.

We spilt them for one talk but the parents still ask all the questions in the joint sessions/informal chats.