What questions should they ask at open days?

[ssd]

Ds wants to go alone but I'm concerned he won't ask the right questions

We never went to uni and haven't a clue what he should be asking or finding out

Any advice is most welcome!!

No accommodation is needed as the uni is in out home town

Sorry in our home town

It's a bit difficult to answer your question without having a rough idea of the kind of subject he might want to study. The right questions for a physics course do overlap to some extent with the right questions for an English course but there's a lot you'd want to know about either of those that you wouldn't want to ask about the other (e.g. how much time in labs per week vs how many essays to write per semester).

Where else is he looking? Questions might vary. Obviously they will vary from course to course.

He should look at the course details on the university web site and see if they give all the core and posduble option modules for the three years. Then see if any questions arise. Is there a chance to do a year in industry? Links with employers? When he’s there, look at other facilities such as library, labs (if necessary) and sport/music/bars/cafes if he’s interested. Listen to the answers in any subject info sessions. Look round the department where he will be.

Is he determined to go here and where else should he look in order to compare? Just looking at home town is limiting his choice. Is he going with friends? Is that why he doesn’t want you to go? Although if he only wants this university, it won’t matter if he doesn’t ask much because he has no comparisons to make.

He's doing social sciences, he's going to 2 different open days at 2 local hometown uni's

I know how things work in my dept.
Admissions tutor does 1-2 group talks each Open day. So look for timing of that general presentation to answer general questions.

Mostly the candidates want to just walk around & see if they like the atmosphere.

The other reason to go on Open Days is to talk to the most informed people: the current students on the course. Only 1-3 yrs ago they were touring Uni Open Days. They gave serious consideration to other course choices. They know what they were looking for & what decisions they had to make, priorities to juggle, aspirations for what the course will give them. Current students are brutally honest ime when they answer applicant questions, about both negatives & positives of their current course & the Uni they attend.

When my DD went some questions she often asked the students were : why did you pick this uni? What are these best/ worst things about the course? What is different from what you were expecting? They can sometimes be interesting!

To be honest, I left DD to ask her own questions as it's her that'll be doing the course. Also, if she's going to uni (looks like one 400 miles away at the moment) then she's going to have to learn to ask her own questions, deal with problems herself.

'how will I make friends when I'm living at home and most people form a crowd with the people they share accommodation with.'
And
'how will I get the full uni experience living at home with a micromanaging parent'

ssd, you may not have been to university, but most, if not all, of your DS's teachers will be graduates. Perhaps he could have a chat with them (or at least his form tutor) about what aspects of the university / course they would want to know more about to aid decision making?

Do your local universities have a particularly good 'rep' for the social sciences, or is there some other reason why he is only condidering those which will allow him to remain at home?

I think he should not just be looking at two home town universities. These will not have the same ranking for the course. One will be better than the other. Few towns have identical universities in terms of quality and ranking. He’s being a bit immature about staying at home - presumably with his mates.

He needs to speak to someone (teachers) with knowledge about his predicted grades and aim as high as he can. Every student needs a fall back university, where he really should get the grades, but have you or him looked at the best universities he could apply for? You can look up The Complete University Guude on the web and look at rankings for the course and for the university overall. He and you shouldn’t think home town is best. It may not be. However if his views are entrenched and no one will persuade him to look around other potential universities, I don’t see what you can add to being there on the open day.

Why is everyone assuming the OP's son is able to live away from home? At many universities the cost of university accommodation will leave very little over from a maximum maintenance loan, while finding shared private accommodation in an unfamiliar town/city is a major challenge for an average 17/18-year-old. He might also have health issues or caring responsibilities.

In reply to the original question, he should be asking about things like the amount of learning done through lectures, small-group case discussions/seminars and other forms, the balance between exams and in-course assignments, the relative amounts of different subjects (e.g. how much sociology, how much economics, how much research methods/ statistics, etc.) and how much choice of modules there is. Whether there is an option for a placement year is also important. Answers to all of these questions will be in the prospectus and/or on the web site, so he will need to pick up details that he couldn't find elsewhere by doing a bit of reading. He should ask current students about workloads, library facilities, student societies, sports, etc.

No was given in the original post about any issues. Obviously the majority of DC don’t live at home and take moving away in their stride. In addition the DS doesn’t want, or apparently feel the need, for mum to come along which would indicate no health issues. If there were health issues, one would imagine the questions might be obvious. Therefore it tends to indicate a DC who doesn’t want to leave home but no one is giving much attention to the course or university. I am happy for the OP to tell me I’m wrong though.

Regarding a decent income after uni, sometimes you need to go to the best place to secure this, or it’s not worth going. If you want to stay at home and have not much in mind regarding a job and quality of course, then of course staying at home can make sense. It could be limiting opportunity and not remotely ambitious but you still have the loan for tuition fees and some loan for home living. For most students it pays to look around a few universities and most schools advise this too.

A university that is a close neighbour of the one where I work has a majority of students (55%) who live at home. I don't think this is especially unusual. I agree that it is much better to choose the best course for the individual student but many students don't have that choice.

Questions we asked included:

What academic support is there for students?
What is the split between coursework and exams?
What links do you have with industry?
How many successful placements have you had compared to the number who applied for placements?
Do you give training in employment skills during the course of the year?

Quickly returning to thread I'll catch up and answer your posts tomorrow but thank you for all the answers

Just to add quickly we live in Glasgow

If hes' looking at social sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University your son might want to ask about how students are selected for year-3 excange with American or Dutch universities (and what the costs are), what you can specialize in after year 2, what the requirements are for progression to the honours programme in year 4, ...

he's

Yes he's looking at cally , Tbh I don't think studying in 3rd year will be feasible if erasmus has gone by then... Would you mind explaining a bit further about the points regarding yrs2 and 4,thanks

Just to add quickly we live in Glasgow.

Which possibly puts the intention not to move away from home for university into perspective - I understand that not leaving home at this stage is more common in Scotland?

Also, Glasgow and Strathclyde are hardly poorly-regarded universities, generally speaking.

The only kids I know who live out have parents with money, the loan here wouldn't cover it without parental top ups
And yes, lots of good uni's on our doorstep

On the GCU web site it says "After an introduction to the social sciences in Years 1 and 2, you may start to specialise in Year 3 and Year 4." I think he could ask about what they can choose to specialize in. To be honest, he can find this out from the programme specification (www.gcu.ac.uk/media/courses/psp/gsbs/ug/P02704BA(Hons)SocialSciences.pdf) but getting a little more context would do any harm.
I'm not very clear about how the Scottish system works, so my other point might be silly. I had assumed that students had to meet certain criteria in year 3 to be able to progress to year 4 to get an honours degree. My assumption might be out of date or just plain wrong.

Oops, I'd forgotten about Glasgow Caledonian. In mitigation, we live in the bottom right hand corner of Essexand have only really noticed Glasgow Caledonian in the context of looking to see whether it offered Architecture, so it fell completely off the radar when we saw that it didn't.

-Whether there are any work placement opportunities
-How much choice surrounding modules
-How they'll be assessed, coursework v exams
-If he's planning to drive to uni, they availability of spaces, how to get permits etc

I found Which Uni helpful in terms of guidance for Open Days ...

university.which.co.uk/advice/open-days/top-questions-to-ask-at-a-university-open-day