University Open Days

[Dancergirl]

Dd is in Year 12 studying English, Sociology and Spanish A Levels plus a BTEC in Performing Arts.

She's not sure what she wants to do career-wise but is considering an English degree which seems to be a good choice and will lead to lots of different careers.

How do you decide which university open days to go to? She's looking at Russell Group so do you just pick a few and go?

Feel a bit clueless about the whole process as she is my eldest!

Yes just pick a couple and go!

She may want to limit how far she is from home, and whether she wants a city uni or campus, and what the actual content of the courses are.

I’d go with her for a couple, - I loved going around them with mine, then she can do the rest on her own or with a friend.

Look at the prospectus for each university first. You should be able to download or request one from their websites. All the courses will be different, so read the course pages first and see if your dd can pick out a few that interest her.
Then, look at the type of uni, some are collegiate - Oxford, Cambridge, Durham etc, which means you apply to a college and live in that college. Others are campus focussed and most of the halls will be on campus. Then there are others where there are plenty of accommodation choices spread around the area/city where the uni is based.
Also, look at accommodation prices and cost of living for each city, as these can vary wildly.
Then there are the league tables, which rank the unis according to student satisfaction.
Once you have all this information, it should be easier to pick out which ones your dd would like to visit.

I was in a similar position a few years ago. I'd recommend visiting any she will be applying to as there are a few I looked at and was surprised how much I disliked them - very glad I didn't find that out as I was moving into halls!

Look at the prospectus for each she's vaguely considering and she should start to notice differences in the courses that appeal/don't appeal. There's usually info about sports, activities and accommodation too.

In some ways I'd say applying to RG universities simplified it somewhat as she can easily narrow down by league tables as a starting point (i.e. "Top 10")

If she's looking at Russell Group universities, just make a list of those, and maybe add a few others by looking at league tables. Then whittle this down to a shortlist of open days based on things like:

Location - does she prefer campus or city centre, large or smaller city, close to home or further away, cost of travel from home.

Course - which modules are compulsory, option choices, size of department, entry requirements.

Other factors like extra curricular facilities (sport, drama, etc), cost of student accommodation, etc.

Most of that will be on university websites. Then you could look at Unistats or Which University to get more specific information on things like student satisfaction, drop out rates, etc. Also worth asking her English teachers & students in Y13 for opinions.

We did much what purplegreen suggests. My children both decided against London and Scotland, so that narrowed things down a bit, and then we looked at the top 10 of the remainder according to unistats.

They looked online at the course, and the admission requirements and the standard offer, which narrowed things down a bit more for one daughter (no A for maths GCSE) and then just booked a few dates.

Both daughters found that the open days really influenced their decisions. One loved Manchester on paper, but didn't like it when she got there. The other said she didn't want a campus university, but changed her mind after a visit to Exeter.

How many Open-Days/year do most Unis have?
How many different Uni Open days to most prospective students attend?

I noticed many Units are having Open Day on 8 September this year (2nd Saturday in September). DD is only in yr11 now, but I am thinking she should go to at least one Open Day on 8 September at start of yr12, or she will have a dates conflict in future & maybe not get to attend any OpenDay for some Uni she really likes ... valid or silly worry? Just seems so soon!

Dd went to one at beginning of y12 to gauge whether the subject she was considering was for her. Now she has booked 3 for June/July, having already visited 3 other options when we were in the area. There are so many clashes it is very tricky to visit them all, and not entirely necessary. Once you have the 5 ucas choices you still can go to applicant/offer holder days in Autumn/Spring before deciding.

I would spread them out over the year because it costs quite a bit for the travel and also they tend to blur into one another if you do them too close together.

Use Complete University Guide, the Times or the Guardian for a ranked list of universities that offer the course she wants to do.

Find out the average grade offer for each university for the course she wants to do. This will significantly narrow the field, depending on what grades she is expecting.

Exclude any that are geographically unsuitable (DS1 wanted somewhere more than 30 miles away, less than 300 miles away and not in London).

For the remaining universities, look online at the course structure to see which courses meet her requirements (DS1 wanted a good choice of modules in second and third years).

Find out when their open days are (some are on the same date as each other, there might be some you can't get to).

Using this method, DS1 narrowed it down from a course that's offered nearly everywhere to a shortlist of fewer than ten.

DS2 (Y11) already knows what subject he wants to study and again has used a similar method to narrow it down to a shortlist of fewer than ten. He wants to go and see three of them this summer/autumn (beginning of Y12) and then will visit some more next year.

Crikey... DD is so engrossed with soon exams that nowhere near thinking about how to narrow them down.
I think I will go chat to her now.

Being in Yr12, she has the chance to go now - this Summer, and to others in the Autumn. That said, travel can start getting expensive, but if that isn't an issue then you can go to several. It is worth hopping in with friends if someone is going to an open day that you can't take them to / that would otherwise cost a fair bit on the train.
All that said, without too much focus, you don't get so much out of an open day at a 'random' university, as you do if it is to "make a choice between these 3 that I've already narrowed it down to".

I really liked push.co.uk when mine were looking. It helped narrow down the choice better than some of the other sites. You can filter by all sorts of things - including cost of housing and even cost of a pint . Or, more academically, by starting with predicted grades. I think just randomly putting in names of Universities you've heard of, then 'English', then having to go through each one individually to find they are only offering AAA* when you are only expecting ABC or whatever is a bit of a waste of time. Being able to start from a more filtered list is quite helpful. You can filter by Geography or all sorts of things.
Sometimes the field is just too wide to be able to find a sensible starting point.

lljkk dd currently in Yr11 is my 3rd, so been through it 2x already.
I didn't do it wiht the other two, but, with hindsight, I think having a look at a localish open day either after GCSEs, or at the start of Yr12 would have been quite a good idea. Particularly for ds, who was really inspired at the idea of going to University after his first open day.
If you are a normal, busy family, then it isn't easy to happen to be available on the day they want to go - we really struggled to get either of our older two to all places they'd have quite liked to have seen due to commitments already being in the diary on the days they were held. If you think about it a year earlier than most, then you've got the option of going there next year too.

Iljkk it's definitely worth trying to get to one this summer. Maybe try and pick one that will help with decision making e.g. you could go to a campus university to get an idea of what life would be like at one of those. A lot of universities seem to have 4 open days a year - 2 in June/July and 2 in the autumn, but inevitably you'll find clashes. Neighbouring universities sometimes have open days on the same day, so you could potentially get to both (e.g. Newcastle/Durham, Liverpool/Manchester). Some do regular student-led tours throughout the year (Sussex and Reading for example), and a lot have downloadable self-guided tours, so there other ways of seeing a university if you can't get to the open days.

Definitely worth going to a few in Year 12 if possible - it's amazing how quickly time flies once they reach Year 13, and if your child is looking at Oxbridge, don't forget the UCAS deadline is October, not January (although I believe other Unis can be added later, is that right?)

If the same parent is always going to be accompanying then it may be worth getting a www.twotogether-railcard.co.uk - we paid off the cost of it in a single trip up to Durham and then used it for another year after that.

It's a good idea to book trains and accommodation (if required) well in advance as for the general university open days there are often thousands of people converging in a single day. Be aware that there may be queues for shuttle buses/ park and ride etc, so always leave plenty of time to get back for return trains.

very useful, thanks all.

My dd ruled out Oxbridge and any London unis and didn't want anywhere further north than Leicester. So she researched (and so did I) RG and non RG that she liked and then we booked open days.

We tried to lift share with any of her friends looking at the same unis to keep costs down.

BackforGood do you have a working link for the push.co.uk uni chooser? I haven't been able to find it on their website.

Your DD must already have done quite a lot of research to have decided that only Russell Group universities offer the particular courses that interest her, so at least that reduces the list to 22 with neither LSE nor Imperial offering English degrees.

Both Warwick and the University of Birmingham have open days on June 22nd and 23rd and booking is currently open for both, if she fancies making a weekend of it. DD is also year 12 and looking to study International Relations with French and will be attending both, as well as Exeter (conveniently at the end of half term), Bristol (15th / 16th June, UEA 6th July but not Russell Group) and possibly Leicester (13th October but ditto).

There is an 'Open day calendar' on The Student Room website. Universities also offer student-led Campus Tours; obviously without all the facilities of an open day, but it is sometimes possible to arrange to speak to someone in the department of interest if one organises it in advance.

Most universities invite those who hold offers to applicant days, which are like quieter and more focussed open days, often including 'taster' lectures, which give another chance to tour the University, accommodation etc. And mainly a chance for each university to choose it as one's Firm choice, of course(!).

Dd went to see 2 at the end of year 11 (June time after her GCSEs). She’s now in year 12 and we’ve got 2 more lined up this month.

There were others she wanted to go to but open day dates clash.

So will still have more in Sept to see.

Push.co.uk
The site seems to have changed /had a serious makeover since we used it.
Help to choose which University page

Thank you, that also includes a link to the Which site that we used.

I thought nearly everyone was looking at open days a bit earlier than this in y12. My DC were encouraged to. We found that talks were booked up and the usefulness of the day can be limited if you didn’t get into the relevant info sessions.

Some open days can be extremely busy so use their web site planning tools to plan your day. What do you want to know most of all? Book relevant sessions if you need to. We didn’t look at our local university - it was irrelevant to my DC.

There is one other piece of information that might be useful for English. What are the employment statistics? What do English grads do afterwards. I know Cambridge English grads who have struggled. Never mind the price of beer - do employers rate grads off this course at the uni you have chosen? For English there’s a pecking order even within RG. What does she think she might want to do afterwards?

English can vary widely in terms of what modules are available. Also, if she could do English and Spanish, she may get lower offers. Many universities struggle to recruit strong linguists. They like people who want to study joint honours where one is a language. It’s worth looking at whether this could get her into a top 10 university more easily.

Thank you all, really helpful.

bubbles she doesn't think she wants to take her Spanish any further, she got an A at GCSE and is doing ok with the A Level but isn't a natural linguist like some people.

What else can you combine with English?

Have booked Birmingham for 23rd June so far.

Not sure about after uni but she's possibly thinking of Law.