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

At Reading we didn't even have lunch with the kids. We were kept apart until the end of the day

For my kids ( who are/ were both aiming very high) offer holder days are all about the course. Taster lectures, taster tutorials, detailed info about the course structure, then maybe some info about accommodation.

Nothing repeating the general open day stuff, and yes a timetable in advance (including info about food please).

I really get the opinions about splitting students from their parents but it's been difficult for us in the past. In the afternoon when students come to us for programme-specific talks/lectures etc, we're only allocated one room and it's really hard to convince staff to come along to these afternoons.

So, you either let the parents come in and see them sitting there bored stiff for the most part. Or you kind of abandon them at the door, directing them to the nearest Starbucks because there's nothing parallel that's put on for them by departments.

So, parents come in with the students and you just have to pitch lectures and activities at the whole room which is difficult but can be great fun when it works

Just send them away. Be clear the day is for students and directions to nearest town/pub/shopping centre etc. That’s what Cardiff did. Thiugh they did food and a parents talk too.

DD is doing her offer holder days on her own (her choice). We did have the strange experience a couple of times during the first round of open days of DD asking a question of a member of staff and the staff member turning to me to answer it!