When will unis return to in person open days?

[seaweedseven]

Does anyone have any inside info on when (or if) most unis aim to return to in person open days? I'm particularly interested in Russell Group & similar level unis for maths.

I've been scouring uni websites and opendays.com but very few are advertising in person days. The only one I've found so far that is tentatively advertising an in person day is Queen Mary.

I can understand why they are wary of commiting to dates at the moment, but I hope there won't be a permanent move to virtual open days. I wondered if anyone works in a uni and has info on future plans?

Better than ask universities what they plan to do next year, ask them what they were doing in the autumn term 2020, before the government locked us down. That should give a good indication. Some universities were delivering f2f teaching.

@BathpoolPark, is there any chance you could share / PM me about Leeds' plans? My son is starting there this autumn - reading English so not many contact hours anyway - and I'm very, very concerned if Leeds is telling existing students a different story from prospective ones. Wish he was taking a year out tbh but he doesn't want to.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm now feeling optimistic that there will be opportunities to visit soon, whether that's full open days or campus tours, but definitely more useful than online info.

I'm just glad I've got 2 years before my next dc goes to uni, and am hoping F2F will be back to normal, campuses will be fully open, etc by then. I appreciate it's been a difficult experience for those currently at uni, especially first years, but difficult for staff too.

Just to add a note of caution. There will be a flurry of activity in September, but please consider holding fire until June/July 2022 to give the current year 12s the opportunity to visit & attend events without being crowded out by those who are now finishing their GCSEs. They really do need the chance to look around and ask questions just before doing their applications. Current year 12s will have plenty of time later without having to clutter things up right now. Open days are busy and unpleasant at the best of times.

That should have said current year 11s at the end.

Yes that's fair enough, Hoghgyni, good point. I really feel for the current Y12, Y13 and 1st year uni - all had so much disruption. Hoping that once the current GCSE fiasco is over with, my Y11 might have a more straightforward 6th form and UCAS process.

For those hoping to attend the campus tours, please be aware that they may be mostly outside, so basically a walk around the campus, rather than going in to buildings to look at facilities, labs, lecture theatres, etc.

As others have said, it'll depend what happens on the 21st, but some universities might reasonably have decided that it's not fair to staff, events management, and recruitment teams to pull together a live open day at that amount of notice and decided that for this summer, open days should remain online. Open Days are HUGE to organise.

Re on-campus/online - I think lots of places will keep lectures online for the autumn and then re-assess. Not all though.

And when I say 'lectures online' I mean just lectures - not seminars and tutorials.

I teach at a research-intensive university (RG, if you must) and we're doing in person campus tours with proper social distancing and asks in small groups.

We also do online Open Days, so you could put the two together - get information about degrees and courses in a really personal way at an online Open Day, and then do a campus tour, socially distanced.

Full on Open Days may be a way off yet, as they would be quite difficult to do with social distancing. And this is not the season for Open Days with full on all-staff call out - we're a bit busy with exams & marking!

I'm hoping this side of the summer holidays. Currently booked onto the Portsmouth day in July which they are hoping will be on campus. We want to do Bristol too, if necessary we might just have a weekend there to get a feel of the city etc. DS is year 12, just struggling to really work out which unis he wants to put on his UCAS application without seeing them!

Southampton did a really good virtual open day a couple of weeks ago.

We are planning an in person open day for July, but we are not RG. Activities will be mainly outside with a digital contingency if required. There will be some indoor but not all the normal talks and tours, there will be digital equivalent.
Planning for September onwards is for more “normal” indoor activity but it’s obviously dependent on what happens with lockdowns etc.

Where I work, we're currently running campus tours for current offer holders. I believe they will be open to other (potential) applicants after the deadline for this year's offer holders to choose their firm and insurance has passed.

We're planning to run in-person open days from September if regulations allow, but this won't be announcing this publicly until nearer the time.