How many university open days is your dc planning to go to?

[ChangoMutney]

Dd2 is in year 12 and has given me a ‘short’ list of fifteen universities to visit, clearly that’s way too many but I wonder how many is normal. DD1 is at Uni but knew exactly what she wanted to do and where. DD2 is finding it harder to workout from online research which courses are good. She wants to do joint history and English, we’re looking at Oxford and Durham but need other options.

Meaning she needs some options if she ‘only’ has A’s for predicted grades.

DS has done two - Newcastle and Edinburgh. He is doing a levels this year and then taking a gap year so will only apply next year. He wants Edinburgh - looking at History.

Might get him to look at a few others this year.

I went to Birmingham (admittedly nearly 20 years ago now) - fantastic university, great extra curricular drama stuff going on which I believe is still going strong. I’m really glad I chose it over my other options, and I loved being in a city.

My sons weren't allowed time off school for visits apart from one day which was chosen to coincide with a couple of popular university open days.

DS1 didn't go to any open days before applying, but went to interviews and/or offer holder days at all the five he had applied to. Then he made his decision about which to firm and insure after that. I went to one interview with him (his first).

DS2 went to one before applying (they had the day off school on the Oxford open day so he went with lots of his friends) and to one interview after applying. He knew one of the universities because his brother is there and he has visited one city often so didn't see the point of the open day.

My older DC did one Open Day each (school takes students to Oxford for the summer Open Day). Apart from that - with the exception of the DS who was applying for Medicine and knew he didn't want to apply to Durham and just left viewing other places - they each visited Durham during term time to see what it was like when it was full of students (which is totally different from out of term time, and that would have put them off). I was in Durham over the past couple of days with my Y12 DD - it was fabulous in the sunshine with students everywhere, playing sport, playing music, sitting by the river, doing their own thing. Two of the other six also went to Bristol Offer Days.

Oops, that should read, re the Medicine DS, and just left viewing other places to do on any interview days.

Are open days worth the effort? All of the information is now readily available online.
DD preferred to speak to people face to face and a couple of the cities she'd never visited before or only as a young child so wanted to get a feel for them, the distances she'd be travelling to get there/ back home in holidays and where some of the halls and rentals were. She found all her visits useful.
It wasn't any effort. She went on trains by herself or with a friend, she just got on with it no input from us or college.

DS has already visited York and Lancaster last year (a year early), and we'll be going to Durham, Warwick, Oxford, Cambridge, Sheffield and Loughborough this Summer. So a total of 8 to start with, maybe try to fit another 1 or 2 in. The location, local amenities, and general "feel" of the place is far more important to him - there's no way he'd even put one on the UCAS form if he hasn't been and toured the uni and the town.

Are open days worth the effort? All of the information is now readily available online.

DS need to see and "feel" the place for himself. There's no way he'll ever put down a Uni on the UCAS form without personally experiencing it. Reading on the internet and looking at web pictures is a very poor substitute for personally experiencing the reality. For example, last year he went to York open day - the accommodation pictures on line all looked fine - but the reality of a couple of the living blocks was very different when you see it first hand - it really put him off as the rooms shown on the website were absolutely nothing like the "show" rooms.

DS is in year 11. Wants to do bio sciences, we have been to Exeter. We are planning another 4 in June and September.

Even though you can get a good idea online, we found visiting gives them the sense of the atmosphere and where they feel they fit in.

Also, it is noticeable that open days are not such a big thing with the independent schools. Maybe, these students are simply given the message to concentrate on a handful of universities in a particular order.

Whereas the bog standard state grammar that DD attends obviously completely fails its students by emphasising that they should consider carefully first what they want to study, then which universities are best for studying what they want to study and (shock, horror!) where they as an individual feel that they would be happiest spending the next 3+ years of their life. It even buys in its Applying to University presentation evening from a non-RG university.

DS2 is in year 11, upper end of ability-wise, and his school has just sent him on another trip to Cambridge. Where, he tells us, one of the talks included an overview of the various types of university set-up (campus / city / collegiate etc). And the advice that one should choose what suits best. Mind you, this is another bog standard state grammar; possibly the version for indie concentrates more on not restricting their choice to that particular college, but considering whether one of the others might be a better fit?

Loving the description of a bog standard grammar! DD's bog standard SFC will give permission for them to attend up to 3 open days during the week, but strongly recommends that open days are attended at weekends rather than during the week. This makes things quite tricky as we are at one extreme of the country. I think DD is planning to attend a couple, but will be relying on knowing the cities from previous visits. Open days are ridiculously expensive in terms of both time & money.

DS's bog bog standard comprehensive school makes no proclamations at all... about pretty much anything !

We managed to combine three in one weekend trip (Nottingham, Durham and York), one on the way back from holiday which was at the end of June half term and a couple of the London ones on the same day. Have you looked at the dates for them to see if that's possible.

DD decided pretty early on that she didn't want to go to a London uni and that she much preferred campus style, so we were able to eliminate some on that basis.

If she's interested in drama, she should be able to find any drama connections by delving deep into uni websites. Also, asking others on tsr about societies/other factors may help.

Either way, looking at options now certainly helps. DD has managed to visit six unis without taking time off school and she boards in another county.

Many DCs talk about university between themselves at school, share views, have visited cities before or know other DC already at universities. They can shortlist fairly effectively.

Mine were at independent boarding schools are were not told where to look! They just worked out their own views and where they thought they would fit in. Plenty of the DC did visits. Course was important for one of my DDs but less so for the other as they all had pretty similar core modules. As DD1 wanted cities we only visited Exeter as a campus university and she felt it was too much like school and wanted to spread her wings into city life. Therefore didn’t make it into her selections.

If you can make these sorts of judgements regarding location, you may not end up visiting Lancaster and UCL, for example, as they are very different. It helps to narrow it down somehow and then it’s less expensive to do the visits.

Ds didn't visit any. Well, we went to the Oxford one but he had a meltdown in Turl St and said he hated the place so we went home. His comp gave out no information, save for the fact that information was available in the library. Ds missed signing up for any official trips as he got the wrong end of the stick and muddled up with the Sutton Trust and thought you had to be low income/first in your family to go to university to attend an open day. Typical of him.

Donkeys years ago I visited three, I think. I remember being thoroughly put off Warwick as the Students Union smelled so badly of sick. But I understand that millennials/young people are not so fond of the old drink now so perhaps Students Unions now smell of posh coffee!

If she's interested in drama, she should be able to find any drama connections by delving deep into uni websites

Look at the Student Union, or Student Guild websites for the universities in which she's inerested. Student Drama societies won't have a web presence in the official university material.

Your DS sounds like mine irma!

I ahve dutifully dragged him round various places (and thrying not ot project my own feelings and preferences too much) and he always declares he dislikes them.... sigh.

His school only organised one trip , to the local crap uni and that was more of a UCAS day than an Open Day. He came home with sunburn.

I still think it's worth going ; it's helpful for anxious parents, too. And your DD OP sounds a lot more reflective than mine or irma's!

Reading on the internet and looking at web pictures is a very poor substitute for personally experiencing the reality

Abdolutely. To that, I (or rather , DD) would say, 'Bristol'. Or, for that matter, 'Reading'. Both great on paper, both a No when she actually visited.

However, too be fair, that view from the Kent campus down over the city, which appears on nearly everything that the university puts out, is pretty faithfully represented in the virtual world, if not quite as heart-stopping as in real life, seen on a blazing hot July day. For quite a while, DD havered over whether Kent, its campus and Canterbury, or UEA, its campus, 50m pool and Norwich (both universities BBB usual offer) would be her back-up application, but in the end, the course at UEA won out.

When did your dc start thinking seriously about which unis to apply to? DD in yr 12 has at least narrowed it down to what subject she wants to do - but as that's physics, and she wants to do a broad non-specialised course she has a very large number of options.

Beyond that she's clear that she doesn't want to be in a very large city (so definitely not London), but happy with either a smaller city or a campus uni. I think now she's at a bit of a loss as to 'what next' to narrow things down, and college doesn't as yet seem to have offered a lot of help.

Sadik Physics is one of those courses that is broadly similar wherever it's studied; certain modules have to be studied in order for the course to meet the IoP criteria for accreditation.

If she has narrowed it down to campus universities / small cities / not London, then the next two criteria to look at would be:

• Level of offer: what grades is she likely to get?)
• Geographical location: how far from home does she want to be?)

DS2 does not want to study in London, would prefer a campus university, and wants to be within 150 miles of home. He is looking at Warwick, Birmingham, Nottingham, Bath and Southampton. If we lived further north, we'd be adding Manchester, Lancaster etc.

I think the real problem is that it's very hard for her to get a feeling re. grades so early into the process. Realistically it could be anything from all Bs to all A* - I guess that means looking at quite a wide range of options.

Maybe the easter holidays will be the time to encourage her to actually sit down & look at things. She has Aspergers & finds college very challenging at the social rather than academic level (largely why her grades are so hard to call for her teachers as much as anyone else) so has little emotional energy for making decisions in term time. I'm hoping a 2 week break will give her time to think about where she might like to consider so long as she's not in exam panic.

Otherwise I guess it'll be after AS exams in May (we're in Wales so still a split course) but I imagine that might be a bit late to book on to June open days? Do they fill up quickly?

I applied for 5 universities, I got conditional offers for all 5.
I went to actual open day the year before I applied, to the one I wanted to go to the most.
Then after i received my offers I went to applicant days at all 5.

Sadik I sympathise as DS2 has Asperger's too.

It is tricky if you don't yet have a sense of her likely predicted grades.
You could always book places at several open days and then cancel closer to the time.