How many university Open Days did your dc attend?

[wildfellhall]

I am interested to know what parents think is an ideal number which will, of course, vary from family to family.

Also how much & what way did the open days impact the dc's first choice?

I did two with ds which, on reflection, was not enough really. I think even just one more visit would have helped him.

dd is in gcse year now.

My niece's experience of horrible and extortionately expensive accomodation is making me wonder about finding out more about accomodation. It's made her uni experience fairly grim.

Both my parents went to Sheffield but I didn't like the man who interviewed me and was told shortly after that the dept was rife with sexually inappropriate behaviors. I sensed something was off and never went back. Thank god. But this was a while ago, I'm sure it is no longer a problem there. 😉

No interviews for a start!

6 - 2 with me (although we did not shadow each other all day), 1 with DH, 1 by himself in person and 2 online. Got 4 offers, attended offer holder days for contenders for firm offer choice.

Some people went to a lot. I think this was because those in very competitive subjects were aware they might not get very many offers and might end up somewhere from clearing they hadn’t applied to.

DC1 went to loads, all over the country. Often staying overnight in youth hostels, on coaches and trains.

Then I realised the whole exercise was a big adventure with the their romantic interest at the time. But they did visit the Unis they respectively applied to.

I was a lot more strategic in getting Dc2 to plan and prioritise based on actual Uni aspirations.

Just one as the June open days clashed with her maths A level exam - she did maths in one year in year 12.

She's already applied as you have to apply early for Oxbridge and we're now visiting 3 more of her choices after application.

Just hope she likes them!

Been on our fifth today (+1 he visited with sixth form), one more next weekend!

Like a pp he hasn't finally decided on a subject so went to two different subject talks. Accommodation visit was a bit of a waste of time as they were all occupied so only a brief glimpse in a bedroom really.
I read my book / explore campus or city while he goes to the talks after having been to them for the first couple. We've done them all by train so we discuss his thoughts on the way home.

No you don't. It's nice to get a feel for the place but it's 3 years. They can make something of their time in that.
A dump of a Uni can be amazing if they make good friends or get some good opportunities. Equally they can go to a well chosen Uni and find out the course is a bit disappointing or the accommodation is grotty/ bad area or expensive ( or both).
Ultimately there's no guarantees.

We only went to the highest ranked Uni for offer holder day and that's where he ended up. I'm not sure it's been the best choice but obviously have no way of knowing if anything else would have turned out any better.

Thanks! I agree, it’s so hard to know until you’re actually enrolled there. I went to a well-regarded place, back in the days of a prospectus booklet, and there were definitely disappointments I had to just roll with. I think I’d have felt differently if I was paying thousands for those disappointments though.

DD has been to 4 with us and 1 with school (that was more a day of activities, but she still got a feel for the place). She already knew the subject she wanted and drew up her short list of Unis based on the course. City sites are definitely her favourites. She loathed Loughborough, liked Leicester and Nottingham and loved Sheffield. Open days are a great way to rule Unis out as well as select preferences.

Just make sure your DC has made some choice about new/old and city/more green space. You could help with that by visiting some in NI.

There are some you could pair up like fly into Newcastle (cheap!) and do Newcastle and Durham (only 15 mins apart by train) or Northumbria. Otherwise wait for the offer holder days. A good idea to go to a couple of those. For example DS went to York which is highly regarded for his subject and generally here on MN but we both came away convinced it would be the wrong choice.

Dc1 zero.
Dc2 plans zero if he gets into his first choice, and we’ll have a look at the others more closely if he doesn’t.

Five each for my son (graduated last year) and my daughter (now in third year). All enormously helpful. Both discounted two unis after visiting them, and both ended up totally falling in love, on the open days, with the unis they ended up at.

@Octocat

5, two of them twice.

3 with DS1 - had planned a 4th but there was a huge storm and we couldn't travel.

DS 2 much more uncertain in terms of what he wants to do and what he's looking for so we have done 5 and have 2 left to visit. September has been intense, with a uni every weekend. Luckily the only thing DS did know was that he wants to be within 2 hours of home so the travel has been manageable.

3 because they did the courses he wanted .

We are going to 3. 1 down, 2 to go

DD went to Nottingham and Newcastle with me, to Clare College Cambridge with her dad and Bristol on her own. This was after she had offers for ML from them I think except for Clare where she didn’t get an offer post interview. She was dazzled by Clare and Cambridge but I really don’t think she’d have enjoyed the course and the workload would have probably overstretched her. Her dad wanted her to defer and reapply but I was so relieved she didn’t.

She was impressed with Bristol and it was tight between Newcastle and Nottingham but Nottingham edged it. It was right for her.

DC each went to 2 actual open days or offer holder days, and we visited the locations for about 2 more. DD did some kind of taster session at QMUL by herself. We started the whole thing off by walking around the campus of our local uni in about year 10 just so they had some idea of ‘uni’, knowing they would both prefer to go further away.

You can do a lot of research about accommodation on the university website, what you see when you visit is very limited and they are such busy days it’s hard to take it all on board. Also The Student Room website is useful for insights about accommodation.

DD will have done 7, 6 with me and last one is planned to visit with friends at the end of the month. Closest option for us is 2 hours so we did a split between June and Sept/Oct. Really useful for her to help decide what she wanted and get a visual of options. Really enjoyed our road trips and watching her confidence grow as we visited. I can see her wanting to do offer holder days for 2 or 3 if she gets the offers shes expecting as I think she will struggle to choose. We kept costs down by staying outside the towns we were visiting and doing two in one weekend. Has been a fair chunk of time but worth it I think for DD (and me).

We went to 3 but she ended up somewhere totally different anyway

I meant to add YouTube has plenty of accommodation videos to peruse.

Ds1 visited 4 in total. 2 with a friend and 2 with us. He agreed that having parents there was better because we pointed out things he hadn't noticed and asked questions he wouldn't have thought of. Ds2 was during covid, so he did much more research online. He had visited ds1 campus so had that as a reference point. Once he had a top choice we were able to go to an open day but we're not allowed actually inside anything. He went there and was really happy with the choice.
We were fortunate that their school was able to give some really good advice on which universities they thought would be a good fit.

Thanks! Good tip about trying to visit two close together.

Mine has been to 3. I haven't gone.