university for 2021 entry. Are any doing in person open days? Campus tours?

[fortyfifty]

If not - what do you think will happen? Fortunately DD has her shortlist of 5 already but it would have been good if she could have stepped foot on at least one of those university campus to help it feel like a reality for next year.

I wonder if universities will just run offers open days next spring or do you think they will allow people to book ad hoc campus tours?

Of course I realise why everything is up in the air at the moment but they are going to have to cater for prospective students at some point. The two virtual open days we 'attended' were poor. Perhaps with more time Universities will come up with something more innovative.

Well I checked out York and Cardiff websites earlier as my Ds is interested but they were still only advertising online open days (that she has done) so I'm guessing they will need to apply without seeing them ( as I did back in the day) and then hopefully they will get offer holders days before they need to make a decision.

There's nothing stopping you jumping in the car and having a wander around the town / city in question - and more than likely parts of the campus will be accessible too, if not the insides of all the buildings. In my experience, you might even be able to eat in the student canteen and visit the union. It's not quite an open day, but the atmosphere of the place is almost as important as the course in some ways. I'd wait till term start though I think... you want to see what the other students are like!

It's in my mind to do that with the two closest ones, which aren't too far from each other, and we could do such a round trip in one long day.

Universities will be operating social distancing in the autumn term at least. Where I work, they will be limiting the number of people who will be allowed on campus at any one time. How (and if) this will be policed, though, I have no idea. However, I don't think you'll get a proper sense of the normal atmosphere in such circumstances (reduced numbers of students milling around, and all required to wear masks), and it will be difficult to access buildings.

I'd imagine that offer holder days will be pushed back into the late spring / early summer terms. Hopefully some semblance of normality may have resumed by then.