Oxford open day

[Lovemusic33]

Hi, hope I’m posting in the right place.
My dd has been asked to go to oxford open day next week with several other students. Dd is in only in year ten (sitting GCSE next year) and has Aspergers, most of the other students who are attending at six form students. Dd is very bright and predicted mainly 8’s and 9’s in GCSE so her teacher feels it would be good for her to join them for the open day just to get an idea of where she could go in a few years. She’s very excited about going. I have just received a letter from the school asking dd to pick 3 subjects so she can attend talks on those subjects. I’m now worried that she will be left to attend these talks on her own. Should I be asking her teacher if he plans on staying with her? Her Aspergers can cause anxiety and disorientation.

Has anyone else’s child attended? Is it pretty easy to navigate?

My post was not meant at all defensively. I was just painting a picture of typical and atypical scenarios we face at open days. I agree that some parents and students might seek to dominate open day Q&As - but then we sometimes get this with our own students in tutorials, so are relatively used to dealing with this. I hope such people have some questions answered and then are gently reminded there are other people in the room with questions if necessary.

FrankJ one thing which is clearly not working brilliantly is the reluctance of helpers to ask parents to allow students to take the seats where parents have plonked themselves. It seems to happen time and again with students having to stand for an hour in a subject talk which parents really have no place, but I think the student helpers do find it hard to ask middle aged people to move for a younger person. It's pretty out of hand though, by all accounts.

Thank you Needmoresleep although I'm not sure why you think DD has a good chance - we don't bank on anything in this house.

I thought the Tutor (Sian Pooley) chairing the earlier History session made a good job of taking questions from the prospective students before resorting to parents if no one else had their hand raised, and with the student helper being miked up, a good job of taking questions from all far flung corners of the room including the side wings. It is however unfortunate when a student does not listen to the prior questions/responses and asks the same one a couple of seconds later. But at least the responses were consistent!

Devondoggy's DD had a very different experience on her Open Day to that of my own DD (I'm reading posts randomly!). She's since managed to ask the question which she'd wanted to ask by e-mail, with a very swift, full and helpful response by the tutor whose time was taken up in the session by one particular and vocal Y11. So there are ways around the problem, but one shouldn't need to deploy them and take up extra time which the tutor could probably use better elsewhere.

@goodbyestranger This does not seem to have been a problem for my own department and college, and we've received no feedback I'm aware of this effect (and we have various mechanisms for getting feedback). For myself the important thing is for priority people (i.e. students) to be in the room and with a good view. I hope those feeling strongly about this are writing to the university with this feedback.

I am surprised your DD didn't get to ask her question Goodbye as the tutors hung around for a good amount of time (about an hour) after the talks we went to (I know naughty us) to take individual questions as did the student helpers for those subjects, unless she needed to rush off for another session elsewhere which I know sometimes happens as there is quite a bit of overlap.

But it is a good trick to use OKBobble to make sure you're remembered. Must note that one down.

Well obviously I'm not naming the college since DD is applying there but no I wouldn't dream of writing in. I feel sufficiently strongly to agree with other posters on MN that students don't need to go on multiple visits from an early age but I'm absolutely not sufficiently bothered to waste my time writing in to the uni. It's been like that for the past decade, it's just how it is. For as long as lots of parents insist on going with their DC and for as long as people encourage their DC to go in Y10, 11 and 12, there's bound to be pressure on resources. I do my bit by not adding to the problem and keeping my DC to a single Open Day visit unaccompanied by me - actions trump words and all that.

OKBobble she would have done but the session ended at 4pm, it was the last of the day and she had to get to the station to get the only sensible train home (the connecting times were really bad on the later trains). As it was she had to run all the way and just made it in time. I agree, some other sessions might not have been a problem, assuming the tutor had heroic levels of stamina.

@Devondoggydaycare, really? I think goodbye needs no one fighting her corner but honestly.. the chances that a DoS/ tutor is going to either be the interviewer her DD gets OR by swayed by an email enquiry is bonkers. Goodbye has shared a lot of useful information on these threads and I don’t think deserves the flack she gets for being bluntly honest.

Goodbye - I think FrankJ meant that if people felt they were not getting adequate access to talks then they should feed that back not that anyone below year 12 should be excluded.

I understand that you don't go to open days and that is your choice. However we need to travel down beforehand and stay over as we live in the arse end of nowhere; hence we end up going and we do a mixture of tagging along behind DS accessing info if we can or splitting and doing our own browse. None of the hotels we looked at catered for u18s on their own thus we had to go too, have a nice night out and a recce of the towns beforehand and get a feel for evenings in those locations which DS has felt has added to his experience. Once I had found out (probably via the source of mumsnet) that some colleges offered accommodation it had all been snapped up (presumably by those in the know with older kids there etc).

We don't attend subject talks etc but admissions ones are usually held in large enough venues to not be oversubscribed. I am surprised following a recent thread that classics finds itself in such a position but I assume they may be holding it in a much smaller venue.

There is no right way or wrong way of how students, their families or their schools approach open days and any exploration into applications whether they be at Oxbridge or other unis, just different ways. each to their own. We have enjoyed exploring new towns and hearing the vibrant students talk about their experiences and seeing the buzz DS and his friends many of whom we have bumped into on these days are getting from them.

Having been there it is easier for us to relate to DS when he talks about each of them. I have to say I had some preconceived ideas of what uni may suit him, which he subsequently disliked and having been there I am able to entirely see his point of view. If I had not been there perhaps I would have sought (at least for a while) to persuade him otherwise. Before I get any comments on this point I know his degree, his uni, his choice. also having been there he now does discuss various aspects with me which he might not have done otherwise. So for us parental attendance has been a great help.

I think some people take some tongue in cheek comments on here waaaaay too seriously!

Gosh OKBobble I absolutely see why one parent might attend and it sounds very much as though you held back for students as well. Two parents I'm less clear about also definitely this idea of multiple visits in consecutive school years.

Can I ask a serious question though? How do people differentiate between the y10-12 pupils. They all vary so in size etc. There are lads at DS's school in y10 who are 6ft2 plus and stacked and other in year 12 who are 5ft7 and unable to grow a whisker yet. I am not sure I would be able to say a y11 student was asking a question rather than it being anyone between the age of 15/18.

We definitely haven't done multiple visits but we have definitely done both parents as weekends are pretty much the only time we get together and as we leave DS to it pretty much we have someone else to hang out with. (I admit we both had a free ice cream at Merton but I haven't heard that they ran out yet )

Some declare their hand or say when asked by helpers OKBobble!

I have no idea Ok. They all seemed to merge into a mass of Jack Wills, Hollster, Kanken bags and floppy hair from age 16 -18. The Telegraph is going to have a lot of choice of which straight A* students leaping in the air to put on the front page in August 2020.

OKBobble I do actually think Devondoggy might genuinely think that my DD is such a try hard that she might try to 'stand out' by the cunning device of an e-mail.

So, for the record: DD is very much not a try hard (indeed things come fairly naturally to DD). She did however need to ask a question which wasn't answered on the website or touched on in the talks. Not a searingly deep academic question relating to truth or the universe though, a rather perfunctory one of a practical nature. I very much don't think the tutor will remember her at all, certainly not for the email (although perhaps for the speed with which she had to exit the room as the 4pm bell struck :)).

If it was a perfunctory practical one then surely the question should have been emailed to the admissions officer for that college rather than the tutor? That is my understanding and I assume yours too.

Are you suggesting one open day to only one University? This will obviously work for some, but you need both a high level of ability and a high level of confidence?

(It was a tactic we sometimes saw used by very bright and ambitious kids, often those aiming for Oxford PPE and the Oxford Union. In Yr 13 they only applied to Oxford, as they intended to take a gap year and reapply if they were not successful. They did not want to reduce their chances of Durham or UCL as a fall back by applying first time round and then turning down the place.)

I would urge some caution. There are big cultural differences. DD went to one open day dominated by large family groups: OK medicine at QMUL. She felt she was the only one on her own, which she found off-putting, made worse by the fact that only fathers seemed to ask questions and the narrative given by the University seemed aimed at them (We are more academic than Cambridge, etc).

This is probably unavoidable. When doing the tour she asked others why they wanted to study medicine, only to discover that what and where to study was clearly a parental decision. She found it next to impossible to find out answers to her questions about sport and the extent to which students mixed with non-medics etc. It could be worse. An Asian friend, who is both Westernised and high powered (she headed a department in a major Asian University, has received an significant American honour and is now an emeritus Professor and in high demand for conferences) moaned to me that her FiL chose what her sons would study. One has Aspergers, something that is not able to acknowledged, even within the family, so the FiL failed to factor it in and the whole thing has been a disaster.

It is known that Oxbridge wants to encourage BAME applicants. I can quite see why GS's daughter with several siblings who have attended Oxford, has no problems attending an Oxford Open Day on her own, but can equally see why BAME groups might want to view the University as a family. There are lots of decisions to be made. Will the student fit in, will the parents feel sufficiently comfortable about the child living away from home, is it worth it, when a student could equally attend somewhere within commuting distance (possibly a good London University) at a lower cost.

The same will apply to others, including those with Aspergers, medical needs, Jewish students whose parents are worried about the growth in anti-Semitism, and so on.

Needmoresleep - back in the day at QMUL it was the medics who partied the hardest and that everyone in law wanted to party with! Don't know if that helps. My DH's experience there was that his social circle was through the sports teams he joined as is the case with many London based unis where students scatter across the capital. That is of course 100 years ago

I'm suggesting one July Oxford Open Day per applicant. Oxford is open at other times of the year too, for initial or confirmatory visits. Just don't hog the subject or college admissions talks in consecutive years. There's no need and resources are limited.

Good point Needmoresleep. I was surprised at the number of BAME students attending given the poor reputation both universities have in this area, so at least they are not discouraged from looking.

Sure Needmoresleep. Obviously there are students with particular needs. Different case.