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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

Uni open days - how many?

65 replies

NCTDN · 26/04/2024 11:55

So ds wants to do aerospace engineering but doesn't have a clue where he wants to go or whether he wants a campus uni or not.
The issue is that all the top ten are a fair distance from us and most will involve overnight stays. I know we can combine Bath and Bristol as they are the same weekend but is going to all ten realistic?

OP posts:
Dearover · 26/04/2024 12:01

Hope Southampton is on that list.

DD went to 4.

RuthW · 26/04/2024 12:01

We went to about 4. Pick your favs

mondaytosunday · 26/04/2024 12:01

I think three or four is more realistic- he will have to whittle it down more.
If Bath and Bristol are in the same day it may be difficult to combine them - we were hoping to do that but it got too complicated with the schedule and the traffic was a nightmare that day.
If you can't make open days then read up on everything about the uni - YouTube has loads of info - and you could go to an offer day instead. Mind you one uni offered too late for us to get to offer day and still waiting for another and their last offer day has passed.

Original poster
NCTDN · 26/04/2024 12:05

No I think we'd have to do Bristol one day and Bath the next
Southampton is a definite but also the furthest!

OP posts:
Original poster
NCTDN · 26/04/2024 12:06

The issue as well is that they ate all asking the same grades, so wet need to look at places for insurance offers too

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Dearover · 26/04/2024 12:09

Don't forget that there will be offer holder days too and you can always visit to get a feel for the place away from open days.

Biscoffisthebest · 26/04/2024 15:06

Depends partly where you live I’d imagine. If you’re in Truro you’re likely not to do more than a handful as everything other that SW is a long drive, but if you’re midlands based like I am it’s a lot easier! My dd is year 12 and we are doing / planning on 6 in total but we can do some of the more central/south central ones in a day easily.
My dd knows she doesn’t want a large city so that makes life much easier as discounts Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield etc immediately which helps. Does he have any preference at all to location?

TizerorFizz · 26/04/2024 15:09

@NCTDN DD1 didn’t look at Insurance choices to begin with. 10 is way too many! He does surely have to do some A level work?! DD2 applied for slightly different courses so looked at 4.

I would prioritise unis with the closest links to employers. Bristol and Bath certainly do. Haven’t looked at the other 8! Plus they might not give the same offer as their “standard” offer. You can easily visit the uni areas of Sheffield. Nottingham and Birmingham in a weekend. Just have a look around. Or maybe choose two of the three to visit. If you are miles from Southampton, is it really worth it over Bristol and Bath?

There are also offer days. Open days can be a scrum so going on an offer day can be better. None of the top 10 unis will be a poor choice by the way. Where he might like to live might matter more.

Trickedbyadoughnut · 26/04/2024 15:18

Lots of reading about the course content and the specialist areas of research for particular departments might help him whittle it down - options to do placements or a year in industry will also really make a big difference. Worth looking at employability stats too.

I would try to do three or four max that are a mix of campus and city to try to get a feel whether he'd prefer one over the other. As others have said, there are still the offer days, so he can apply for the ones whose modules appeal most and then visit if he gets an offer.

curliegirlie · 26/04/2024 15:46

Back in the day.....I visited the unis I had offers from, so made my initial application purely based on prospectuses. Although I may have visited Bristol beforehand, as it was local.

I don't think I'd combine two open days in one day though...

Original poster
NCTDN · 26/04/2024 16:53

He's so different to dd. She know the course she wanted and not many places offered it so we didn't have many to visit. Engineering offers such an array on top of the location conundrum.

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TizerorFizz · 26/04/2024 17:02

@NCTDN Do you not choose based on predicted results though? You might want to look a grade or below in one or two subject's for insurance but top 15 is surely ok? Then work out where is too difficult to get to if that matters. Work out city or campus (Bath and Loughborough are the obvious campus ones)but really I don’t think the choice is huge because how far down the table are you realistically going to go?

Could be worse: he could want Law or History!

wwyd2021medicine · 26/04/2024 17:30

DD1 went to 3
DD2 went to none but we visited 3 of the 4 cities she applied to

medianewbie · 26/04/2024 17:35

Dearover · 26/04/2024 12:09

Don't forget that there will be offer holder days too and you can always visit to get a feel for the place away from open days.

True. But we want to both the Open Day & Offer Day for 1 particular Uni. Open Day they had all the toys out (well known for Gaming courses) & it was really impressive. Offer holder day v different. 1 commented to 1 member of staff who rather sharply said that 'most Offer holders accept immediately'.

Wornoutlady · 05/05/2024 21:19

Just to clarify, because my kid is going to these (you need to book in advance) Bristol and Bath have their open days on June 14th & June 15th, both of them both days. A couple people on this thread have confused "same weekend" with "same day".

AliMonkey · 05/05/2024 21:41

We did about 10 with DD (well DH went to 5 and I went to 5). She was keen to see lots (doing a subject that almost all unis offer). We did Bristol/Bath and two of the Yorkshire ones back to back so that reduced the cost and travelling and one was a day trip. It was nice to have a night and day away with her for each one, but the costs did add up. I think we started off planning fewer but the first ones helped her to work out what she wanted so we then added some more. She then went to her top 3 for offer days as well (with the other parent) to check her thinking (as worried if her choices had been swayed by order of visiting) but it didn't change it, so in hindsight wasn't necessary. Am now trying to persuade DS to attend a few. He's keen on DD's uni which we have obviously visited and we'll visit at least one more near our holiday in the summer, and have managed to persuade him to do one that's a day trip, then from that we hope to persuade him to do some more in the autumn. Worried that he'll choose badly by not doing enough research, as that's happened previously with exam choices.

Original poster
NCTDN · 05/05/2024 21:57

Wornoutlady · 05/05/2024 21:19

Just to clarify, because my kid is going to these (you need to book in advance) Bristol and Bath have their open days on June 14th & June 15th, both of them both days. A couple people on this thread have confused "same weekend" with "same day".

Yes we're doing bath and Bristol over two days and also collecting dd and emptying her house the same weekend! She's in Bristol too so it's pointless making another journey for that.

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Original poster
NCTDN · 05/05/2024 21:57

Although Bristol is only registering interest at the moment, not booking places

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FlameTulip · 05/05/2024 22:03

DS went to 4. He then applied to 3 of them (not the one he didn't like) plus 2 he hadn't seen. Went to one of those on an offer holder day. The other one he never saw, but we could have arranged to go if it had ended up being a potential choice.

TizerorFizz · 05/05/2024 22:04

@AliMonkey My DDs didn’t find open days that useful. However they had a view on what they wanted and it didn’t change. Parents seem to have a lot of time available. It’s better to research from internet and then visit shortlist. None of DDs friends visited 10.

AliMonkey · 05/05/2024 22:29

@TizerorFizz For most of the unis, I'd say the open days weren't that useful as they just backed up the views, but they definitely put DD off two that on paper had looked like strong contenders, so that made it worthwhile, and it helped her form the view that she wanted "campus on edge of city" whereas initially she was thinking of eg Warwick. And the uni that she put top (and is now at) was probably number 5/6 on her list before we went. Also, information given at a couple of the earlier ones helped DD think about more things that needed investigating at the others. So we definitely found them worthwhile and giving up a few days to spend with DD was not a hardship. DD's course was available at 125 unis so 10 was a shortlist from internet research!

curliegirlie · 05/05/2024 22:47

This was post application, but I remember the open day I went to at Nottingham helped me ditch that one from my shortlist (I.e. I knew from that it wouldn't make my firm or insurance choice)....the particular academic they got to give the subject talk was a very poor choice and his negativity put me off completely! (I was looking at doing a History/language joint honours and he was emphasising how you would only continue the language IF you passed the first year, in a way that made it sound he thought it was unlikely. I was probably just an oversensitive 16 year old but it didn't give me the best impression).

TizerorFizz · 05/05/2024 22:59

@AliMonkey Yes. Subjects like history are available everywhere but your A level predictions narrow down options and my DDs had fairly strong ideas about city unis. They definitely would not want a campus or a small town with a couple of clubs and pubs. Prestige mattered too. Plus career prospects. DDs didn’t change their minds but didn’t necessarily want what their friends did. Otherwise it was Exeter or nowhere!

Willowkins · 05/05/2024 23:05

We did 4. We were going to do another one but the trains were on strike that weekend so we did that one online instead.

user09876543 · 05/05/2024 23:05

We did five for ds1 and are probably doing six for ds2.