Uni open days - possible to do two in one day?

[CornishGem1975]

We're just at the point of starting to look at uni open days and was wondering if there is enough time to do two visits in one day? For example, Bristol and Bath are on the same day - could we kill two birds with one stone or is that biting off more than we can chew?

They are only about 10 miles apart, so in theory you could do one in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

Put simply: no. The subject talks tend to be scheduled for the mornings and then you might want to visit a hall or two and see other facilities. Then you would need to travel. Then do it all over again. If anything is available when you arrive ! What you could achieve in a short afternoon is limited I think. No doubt someone will have done both, but with parking and travel, I would not attempt it.

Not really. To get value out of them you really need to spend more than half a day there and the way most are structured you would miss an awful lot of stuff at the one you visit in the afternoon.

Okay, thanks for that advice, that's really helpful! I think we'll do an overnight stay and do one each day.

@CornishGem1975 we've done a few overnight stays which are helpful to see what the town / city is like outside to the open days.

We did Bath. The uni offers great on site accommodation during the Summer so that you can get the most out of your visit.

In theory you could but we all enjoyed having a day out, lunch in the nearest town etc
Would feel a bit rushed if we tried to do 2 in one day

We did manage two - Loughborough then Leicester but to be honest we already had doubts about whether Leicester was the right option for DS so it was more of a quick visit to confirm.

At this moment it’s 35 mins university to university. 15 miles. During the day a longer time would be needed. Bristol has different locations for talks but it’s mostly around Clifton. I do agree that staying overnight gives a flavour of the uni and city.

We did Bath and Bristol on the same day last year. The talks are usually repeated at different times throughout the day so as long as you book onto them for early AM and late PM and give yourself enough time to walk around for a feel of the place it's doable. Accommodation will be open all day to have a nose as well.

We did just this and it didn't really work. We did Bath in the morning but missed accommodation talks and rushed to Bristol by train where it really was a rush and a limited experience. We spent more time in Bath than Bristol and ds dropped Bristol from his list after (possibly as such a stressful rush and justice not done for Bristol).
Put Bath as choice and spent night in Bath for offer day to get a proper feel of the place and be a tourist.

In some respects it is easier to get a feel of Bristol university as a “tourist”. Mainly because you can see the university in Clifton. It’s not a campus. You would need to consider going out to Stoke Bishop to see where the halls are there, but not really necessary. We didn’t. The city of Bath is not where the university is. So just seeing Bath is not seeing the university. I think open days give a better flavour of what the departments are like snd a whole day makes it stress free.

Same

I second the getting the feel for the town without rushing. We did loads of city breaks during lockdown when you were allowed to travel but foreign travel was a phaff. We didn’t see the uni except from the outside but got a feel for the town and journey to and from home.

No, not u less u want to miss loads from both.

I know both cities really well myself so it's more about the actual universities. Booked for separate days anyhow. Seemed obvious once I started the booking process as you'd hardly fit any sessions in!

@CornishGem1975 Yes. Im
not surprised you found that.