After the offer - offer holders days

[FiveFoxes]

What happens after your child receives an offer through UCAS? Do they always receive an email from the university and does this happen straight away? What about invitations to Offer holders days?

DS has received a couple of offers through UCAS. However he hasn't received any emails from the universities. Should he (I) worry? Especially as I have seen one of the universities has their first offer holder day soon

The unis will send out invites to offer holder days. They are smaller than open days, and usually only cover a few subjects at each event. The majority happen from February onwards, and there will often be more than one for each subject.
Applicants may not hear anything from the uni until then.

Most offer holder days are held between New year and Easter. Some will be subject or faculty specific so not all may be represented at any given one. Some unis go all out with congratulations cards and marketing, others less so.

Thanks. So it's normal not to have received any emails from the universities?

(I read the threads on MN last year where offer holders days got fully booked, so want DS to be proactive when he's invited!)

DC has had a couple of postcards from one, a letter from one, nothing from one and few emails from another! For one there is an offer holder portal and they looked on it today and were able to book an offer holder day.
They got all their offers a few weeks ago and didn't hear from any of them for at least a week. The letter was only received this week.

@OP offer holder days are also advertised on the uni website and even if you miss booking them or they are full of, still go along! they won't turn you back. Many who book won't even turn up on the day The booking is just to give them an idea of numbers for the day but I've never heard of anyone been told they can't participate because they didn't register so don't fret too much about it.

It's all a bit of a lottery!

I work in a school and have seen hundreds of students go through this. It's normal not to hear back at this stage.

DS has had two offers so far. One uni has sent an email and a letter with details about Offer Holder days. The other one has sent nothing (but DS got the automatic email from UCAS). Don't worry... unis send much more stuff out in the New Year.

The emails to be super-vigilant about are the accommodation ones. Tend to start appearing from new year, but the details are also often available on offfer portals where they exist. Really important to be on top of these as procedures vary so widely. For the last two years I have known of candidates who totally missed the UCL process, for instance. They can get lost in marketing bumf

Thanks all. Slightly reassured!

I will continue with my regular question of "have you checked your emails? ... And your junk emails?!"

He is a sensible boy, but has more of an academic than a common sense mind!

In the nicest possible way you need to relax. There is a long way to go yet and things could take all sorts of different turns. There is so much information out there that the whole thing can become completely overwhelming and it’s easy to overthink things. I know lots of young people who ended up in places they weren’t even considering at the point your son is at and have been extremely happy. Just relax and take things one step at a time and your DS will be fine.

DC has booked a day with Portsmouth and just got an e mail through yesterday to book one with Loughborough. We haven't heard from the two others they have offers from yet and they likely won't attend those two if offered.

Do offer days tend to be at the weekend like open days, or midweek?

Several offered for DCs subject- mix of weekend and weekdays.

Off topic a bit but had to add, i do miss the days pre covid when universities courted students. Offers day goody bags included all sorts of freebies e.g hoodies, socks followed by more stuff through the post. Offer day lunches were a whole spread of hot lunch or scrumptious sandwiches, varieties of cookies and cakes (the ones i went to). All gone with covid! now you'll be lucky to get offered water.