Which English Unis to visit from Scotland (two at a time)

[Notsureabouthis]

Daft q alert! My son is looking at History/Ancient History 2020/2021(will possibly defer).

We’re thinking we should get a couple of Uni visits done at Easter (we break up a week before universities). For various reasons we can’t get to any formal open days except Manchester Met until October.

Problem is we’re coming from Scotland and I can’t figure out the best two to do in April.

Our long list is Lincoln, Manchester Met, Kent, Reading, Leicester, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham!

Which two would be easiest to visit on two consecutive days preferably by train from Scotland over two days?

Thanks!

Well, Nottingham , Birmingham and Leicester are a cluster there , with Nottingham and Leicester being close to each other, so they are easy. You can get to Lincoln from Nottingham by train. The service used to be rather slow but may have sped up since I last did it. The others are a bit more scattered....but I am sure Reading and Birmingham / leicester is doable. Kent is veeeeeeery far away from Scotland... that's about as far as you can get!

If you are going to Manchester Met on a formal open day, you could combine that with Liverpool.

Otherwise, as Piggy says, take your pick from Nottingham, Birmingham and Leicester. If you are doing self guided tours, rather than fitting in with uni timings, and prepared to get up early, you could probably do Nottingham and Leicester in one day.

DS1 is in his first year doing History at Leiciester. He is enjoying the course and likes the university.

Nottingham and Leicester are close enough that you could easily do them on consecutive days.

Rogue one but worth a go. Ancient History at Oxford is brilliant, top notch. I always say give it a go, you’ll never know until you try.

Good train journey Scotland to Birmingham. then Birmingham to Leicester is easy. If looking at Reading then could consider Royal Holloway instead of Kent

If the ones further away are real contenders, then I'd do those. We're the opposite, DD was interested in St Andrews and Edinburgh, 400 miles away. So glad we visited them in school hols, with the pressure of exams looming now
I know she wouldn't want to take 2/3 days off school.

Different unis offer different visiting options. If you're not attending an open day, ask to meet a lecturer or attend a lecture, as well as talk and walk some offer. We met a lecturer at St Andrews and had over an hour of quality time with her and with a t&w got far more out of it than any open days. Staying in the area overnight was also beneficial.

It's clump then as Leicester Nottingham and Birmingham
Manchester and Liverpool
Kent and Reading (stay in London and break out in one direction one day, and another the other)

Which leaves Lincoln as a left-over, but you couid I suppose take the east coast train to Grantham do Lincoln (bus) and Nottingham (train) from there.

there are trains to Lincoln from Nottingham (and Grantham, I think).

Yes there are, I had a city break in Nottinham and combined it with a trip to Lincoln, it was a similar journey to going from Edinburgh to Stirling on the train for length and straitforwardness.