Offer holder days / did they help your child choose there Uni?

[iwantavuvezela]

So DD has her offers from and is deciding between firm and insurance. she is signed up to offer holder days where I am hoping that she might get a much more instinctual feel about which Uni might be best for her, and help her make the choice between firm and insurance.
Any experience from past students that these days really helped?

For my dd, yes absolutely. Don't forget they are not only choosing the course, they are choosing where they want to spend 3-4 years of their life.

She came back from one saying urg no I don't want to live there. She came back from another loving the city and was very happy with her choice.

Thanks for that @DwarfPalmetto - that's what I was thinking - a chance to meet your cohort, see the city and get that 'feel' for something.

Yes definitely, but as pp above, do make sure that you spend the whole day, at the department, campus, and city…..

Both mine found them really helpful. Detailed tours of the relevant department and facilities, sample lectures, taster sessions, opportunities for detailed chats with staff and current students on the course etc.
Also useful to have a second look at the campus, facilities, accommodation etc.
Generally much smaller events than general open days so less crushed into everywhere and greater ability to get a feeling for a normal day in campus.
Some even given you lunch 😁

Yes.
DD very much liked both of her top two choices, at the time she got her offers she'd not seen one of them fully. She'd have been fine with either but really loved that one after the visit.

They were more in depth visits than open days, which had already eliminated some unis that looked good on paper.

Yes, another vote here for very useful. My DD went to the first on her own, but came back saying 'everyone else' had parents with them, so I went to another 2 with her. The uni that she ended up choosing filled us both with enthusiasm for the subject, and that has continued to be her experience.

In theory yes... It made DS clear about which uni he wanted to go to, but unfortunately then chose only courses at that uni (which was very hard to get into) and didn't quite get the grades he needed.

He ended up going to a uni through clearance that he'd never visited - but it's actually a far better fit for him than the one he wanted on the offer holder day...

Yes and No. DS decided he couldn’t see himself at a very good university I thought he would have loved. He ended up somewhere he’d never seen before (better than the universities he’d firmed and insured). I think that there is information overload we this generation and they can get too tied up with everything being perfect. In the past people often had a great experience in a place they’d never set foot in before the first day of their degree.

Very much so. They are different from regular open days though a lot depends on the input of the lecturers / staff.
DS2 had offers from Warwick, Nottingham, York, Sheffield and another I forget. He made a list of details about the courses, pros and cons and focussed on the course content rather than location. He had visited all on open days and was fairly clear on his preferences.
York was at the bottom of the list but when he went and had more in depth discussion with the tutors and looked around again it went straight to the top. He did want a campus uni though.

another yes here, my eldest changed her mind on Firm / Insurance based on Offer Holder days. We stayed over and spent a chunk of the weekend in the area to get a real sense of place. It was reassuring to know more about the area and reflect on some of the practicalities of life away from home (like how awkward the train station was to get to)

IMO, unless you feel you already know the place well it is definitely worth another trip because Open Days seem to be a bit fraught and limited. Getting to talk to your tutors and ask more specific questions is useful, meeting actual students good too.

FWIW we are off to 3 Offer Holder days in March, probably the main questions are going to be around real (not virtual) contact time, module handbooks / assessment and academic support - because we didn't ask that with eldest and all those things have been a bit rubbish at her supposed "top 10" Uni

We had been to Open Days for everywhere DS applied. He knew from those visits and other info which was his top choice. He then didn’t go to any offer holders days. He didn’t feel he needed to.

I guess sometimes people have applied to places they haven’t visited. But DS and us spent the spring of yr12 going to open days. He booked I to subject talks and looked at accommodation in each. We made sure to visit the uni and also the city of each place at that time, so he felt he knew about them. He also carefully read up on the courses.

So I think that if you were sure of your choice of course in yr12 and went to all the Open Days and made the most of them, some students won’t need Offer Holder days. But where there is uncertainty or visits haven’t been made or are incomplete, they could be really useful. I’d imagine most would only need to attend a couple though.

Yes definitely. DS went to 3. Sheffield bumped York as insurance place. Sheffield dept. just oozed enthusiasm and warm welcome. On paper York is a higher ranked university but the offer holder day was uninspiring.

I completely put DD off Exeter because DH and I went there and I spent all day like an excited puppy reliving my student days and telling her loads of stories and anecdotes.. 😂. Afterwards she said it was too hilly and she didn't really like the faculty, but I think she wanted to plough her own furrow without being in her parents' memory shadow!

Aside from that we went to her other 3 that she was seriously considering and had offers from, and it definitely helped her to rank her choices.

Yes, but primarily because it was the first time she visited the unis at all! If she had been to open days I don't think she'd have bothered. She changed her degree subject quite late and so the first four unis we had been to were crossed off the list, the next two were also rejected and that left one she liked and the others were too far away (overnight trips) so decided to apply and go to the offer holder days instead. Problem with one of the choices is they offered the day before the last offer holder day which was fully booked. Anyway she's happy where she is now and the offer day sealed the deal (Durham).

DD did offer holder days at her top 2 and found them really useful, as did we.
She got to do some labs, which she loved

Do parents generally tend to go on offer holder days? I had assumed that having been to open days together, this was now DS' chance to go and see what he thinks on his own. But am happy to go if this is generally what happens. Enjoyed the open day visits...

DD asked us to, think she wanted a lift more than anything
I would say 3/4 of DC had an adult with them and one girls attached herself to us saying she wasnted her Mum to come but she refused.
One of them fed us free pizza though

DD1 had already accepted firm and conditional offers but the offer days made her really think she'd made the right choice - settled her mind and got her even more enthusiastic about getting there- and they did a surprise interview as part of the day and they dropped her offer as she made such a good impression - DH say his Uni don't do that.

DS waiting to go to top two to decide which is firm and which conditional.

When DD1 went to her firm offer she was the only one with a parent there - the staff noticed and did keep an eye on her. DH says most come with parents when he does them but they try and sperate them off - send parents to different talks.

We're expecting DS to go by himself - just two visits though. They both did open days with DH but I think DD1 found it useful to go by herself again.

We did a diy tour of Bath campus and a weekend exploring the area. This was actually before she applied - so summer of year 12. She was adamant that Bath was the university for her and is currently enjoying her first year there.
Ds didn’t visit anywhere and was equally fixed on his choice of Warwick and graduated 4 years ago.

It confirmed her choice. She went up with her dad on the train which was a good way of testing the public transport/ independent travel aspect too. They also had a look around the city. DH liked being able to hear more about the course too as he then felt confident it would suit DD.

Many kids need a parent to go with them for logistical reasons, and some unis put on talks about finance etc for them. But it's optional, up to each family to do what works for them.
One of DDs was strictly for the offer holders only but that was an oxbridge college where it included sleeping on the floor of a first year's room so it was atypical.

Re parents attending, I think it depends on the child - DS didn't want us there, DD did, and chose unis that were expensive to get to on the train from where we lived, so a road trip was quite fun. As a PP said, the candidates were taken off to have seminars or presentations from the faculty, and the parents had talks on accommodation choices and campus safety etc.

DD applied grades in hand so had to choose just the one. She was wavering between Nottingham and Cardiff and looked like she was leaning to the latter. However at the Nottingham offer holders day the department played a blinder putting on a lunch to chat to current students and a programme of activities in the afternoon where the staff just seemed to get on and have fun. It was also very well organised. She went to Cardiff on her own and came back saying it was a lovely city but the offer holders day was disorganised and chaotic. SO she went to Nottingham and is loving it there.

Not for my DD. She was fixated on things other than the course. The offer holder day definitely made a difference to my opinion. I held in high esteem the university that let current and past students give a presentation, demonstrated how female friendly they were (male dominated course) and even had the head of faculty (also female) address parents and prospective students. It was also evident how cohesive they were as a department. DD however liked the accommodation better at the other uni. 🤔

She deferred anyway and has reapplied to 2 different universities. We will do offer holder says again. They do seem more useful than open days.

Yes, dd completely changed her order of priorities after attending these. They were on a spectrum from slick and impersonal to friendly and slightly chaotic - friendly and slightly eccentric was much more her vibe and she is very happy with her choice now in 2nd year.