University open days and saturday jobs

[Spendonsend]

I just wondered how others were balancing open days with work. All the courses open days my son is interested seem to be on saturdays, but not the same saturdays. He will struggle getting so many off.

Do people not really do many open days now. Will just visiting the town on a different day be enough.

Honestly, go visit the uni and the town. Doesn’t have to be a Saturday. Get a look, see the facilities.

I think only one we went to was a Saturday - most during the week which meant missing a day of school. DD was going for a completely different degree initially so in the end only went to one open day for a uni she actually applied to (two she went to she dismissed, and two others were for the other degree). She's been to two offer holder days but not sure she'll get offers in time to attend the others (which are on the same day anyway). None on a Saturday.
Many unis are happy to show you around though, if you can't make an open day. Give them a call.

I hadn't heard of offer holder days till DD went. They are so useful. Get a feel for the town on another day, then do offer holders days.

I would just go to one open day, so your son has an idea what to expect, then he can research the others online. Dd2 did this but then went to all five of her offer holder days, so I'm pleased we didn't have to do ten or more visits.

The autumn ones are usually Saturdays but there are sometimes midweek ones in June and July. Have a look now, decide which you want to prioritise and which dates would be most convenient / least disruptive.

You don't have to visit them all; if they get an offer there will likely be offer holder days too, in the spring of Y13.

Most Open Days are on Saturdays and my DC variously got round the clash with work shifts by:

Spreading the 'Open Day attendance' period across autumn Y12, summer Y12 and autumn Y13 so they could use holiday allowance and/or request shift swaps more easily.

Supplementing the formal Open Days with booking onto guided midweek tours in the summer vacation and/or self-guided 'look arounds'.

Thank you all. I had not heard of offer holder days. Thats so helpful to know they exist. This is all so new to me.

Agree with above. Holder days are a completely different beast. My DD didn't go to any open days but 2 offer days. She'd been uncertain of which of the two to accept and after the offer day didn't even put one of them as the insurance, she'd been so unimpressed, but put her insurance as her 3rd offer which was sight unseen at the other end of the country.

I've been having this dilemma with my daughter.

Luckily her 8 Hours can be worked in various combos - she usually goes 4/4 but we were thinking she could do 8 on one weekend day. It's complicated by several concert tickets booked for the summer before she started work.

Good to hear lots of people don't go to any / many.

There are risks in leaving visits until offer holder days (usually later in Y13) as your DC may find they really don't like the idea of a particular uni, yet it has taken up one of their 5 UCAS choices. In addition, some offer holder days clash and some competitive entry unis fail to offer to some applicants until after their offer holder day 'season'.

It is potentially 3-4 years of DC's life and a £50k+ commitment one way or another - so better to plan some visits, formal and/or informal, before UCAS choices decided; this also allows for changes of mind, mulling over etc. The time and cost commitment does not have to be great if DC can engage, plan ahead and, for example, use 16-17 railcard to keep down travel costs.

I agree with the above posts, go on a non-open day. You won’t get to hear all the talks etc but you can still get a feel Of the place.

We started doing the open days a year early which meant we could spread them out over around 18 months. Unis are fine with it.

We did loads and they were well worth it. DD did have to take a lot of time off work but her employer was very understanding and facilitated it.

I would definitely go to the open days. You can't get a feel just by going to the town. My son completely changed his preferences based on open days.

My DD1 only went to mid week ones! However school limited it to 3. That’s enough really. One day was pretty poor and wasn’t useful other than to not want to go back! Others were useful but open days can be so busy they are a horrible scrum. Quieter unis might be better but I’d check out where they are and whether he wants campus or town/city centre. My DDs didn’t look at every minutae of the courses. Reputation mattered more and the cities.

DD was lucky in that her employer has quite a generous leave allowance and also allowed her to take some unpaid leave so that she still had some left for actual holidays. She did a mix of weekday and Saturday open days plus one offer day for a uni she added to UCAS at the last minute. Both open days and offer days were extremely useful. She had already looked round the campuses of a couple before going to the open days, but the open days gave her so much more detail about courses and a much better feel for the unis that they were well worth doing. The offer holder day she went to also changed her mind about her insurance choice. I would recommend trying to get to them if possible.

Best time to go to any uni is when the uni is in session so October half term and February half term. Just visiting the place, walking around means they can get a feel for a campus or city, large or small. Open days are when the students are not there, term dates are online, it can give a totally different feel to campus unis especially.

Ds is still waiting for a uni to either offer or reject him so offer days for that uni are end of April and beginning of May which he doesn't want to do due to the distance from us and missing vital revision time to facilitate it. it is literally a whole day lost with travel and the events so close to his exams.

Some more good tips. Thanks everyone.

I hadnt thought about half terms!