Do admissions tutors know whether applicants have been to the open day?

[enuffty]

DS was due to be at an Open Day today but cancelled for various reasons. It is one of his 5 UCAS choices, and probably top 1/2, but he has already visited to look around campus with us, and watched videos online, so didn't feel the need to prioritise today's visit ahead of some other important stuff he needs to do. But, if he had gone, would the admissions tutor know? And if he had made a point of speaking directly with the admissions tutor for his course to demonstrate his enthusiasm, would that have made a "positive impression"? My understanding is that US uni admissions work that way, but UK uni admissions don't. That said, it's an oversubscribed course and, while he has a very strong application on paper, including a good personal statement, I expect many other applicants will too. I don't think they usually interview, so how do they decide?

No they won't know. Most open days do ask visitors to log their contact details, and there maybe some monitoring for widening participation purposes, but they won't be done at individual level.

Decisions are more often made centrally anyway rather than by admissions tutors.

Over-subscribed doesn't necessarily mean super competitive. Don't forget applicants usually put five choices down, so courses only get oversubscribed on average if there are more than five applicants per place.

Thanks Titchy. I understand the whole department was oversubscribed this year due to Covid grade inflation - they had a bigger intake than they bargained for so have raised the offer boundary for all their courses for 2022.