Summer 2025: y12 university taster residentials that AREN’T for state school or disadvantaged students

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DS is currently in y12, studying humanities A levels. He’d like to do either geography or history at degree level. He’s at an independent school and has ASD and dyspraxia.

He’d like to go to university, but I think he would really benefit from having a mini university experience to just see what it is like. He’s academically able, but gets lots of support at home to keep him on top of things, give him a calm environment, everything is done for him etc. I think the transition to university (he wants to move away) will be a big shift for him and could be overwhelming. I think he’d be better off at a campus university, which he takes on board, sort of. I just want to give him every chance to succeed, and I know that we will need to teach him a lot of life skills in the run up to him actually going.

Can anyone steer me towards summer resi courses at universities that he might be eligible for please? Even if only for a few nights. We’re not a low income family, and he isn’t at a state school, which rules many of them out.

Ive seen one at Bath, but the dates don’t work, unfortunately. Summer 2025 would be good, as it might help inform his university choices.

UCL do them, but they're expensive: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/summer-school/.
Warwick do them, but you have to provide a lot of personal data even to find out anything about them: https://warwick.ac.uk/study/summer-with-warwick/pre-university-summer-school/
Birmingham say they do them, but the link points to the wrong page.
These examples tell you quite a lot about UK universities..

A lot of summer taster courses are really designed for international students, with a price tag to match.

https://debatechamber.com are good

Teeside do it Discover Teesside Residentials | Schools and Colleges | Teesside University, as do Newcastle Bitesize Uni Summer School | School and College Outreach | Newcastle University, Staffordshire The UniLife experience - University of Staffordshire and Gloucestershire Summer residentials - University of Gloucestershire. Even if he is not considering some of the unis they'll still be a good taster session!

This is all very helpful, thank you.

Edinburgh and Warwick are £5k each! Crikey. They are very much aimed at oversees students with lots of sightseeing. Sounds really lovely, but it is more the university experience that DS needs, not learning and holiday combo.

I am making a list and will go through them all.

DS did a taster week at Southampton last summer and it was about £400. It was, however, a STEM course but they may run a humanities version, I don’t know.

These courses are not at university but are residential and might give him a taster of being independent, learning to get on with others and working in a group and have some academic focus. There are history and geography ones as well as ecology and science - and at a much lighter price point than the ones aimed at international students.

https://www.field-studies-council.org/courses-and-experiences/static-courses/history-camp/

Thanks for the info, there’s been lots to look into. I will update so that anyone who comes across this thread has some answers:

gloucestershire - eligibility criteria is geared more towards widening participation so DS is ineligible

newcastle - the same

Staffordshire and Teeside - looks a possibility, but not as much focus on content, more the university experience (but Teesside may be a bit far)

Southampton - not available for humanities, otherwise it looks as if it would have been absolutely perfect

debate chamber - content looks good, but they aren’t residential

UCL - I agree that these are very geared towards international students

Birmingham - I can’t find the relevant page either!

field studies council - I looked at these as part of the Gold D of E residential component. They looked really good then and do now too. DS opted for a residential that was more skill based than subject based, so I didn’t take it any further. But actually the history and geography ones look really good, so thanks very much for the reminder!

i think that’s everything!

Is he settled on Humanities? The Smallpeice Trust do engineering residential courses at various universities which are mostly first-come-first-served, though they do reserve places for girls as they aim for 50:50.

Ntu have some summer schools

Sadly not Humanities but for anyone reading this and looking at STEM I can second that the Southampton ones are great. Good value and I think they have Bursaries/discounts for widening participation applicants

Dd had 3 days in Cambridge but you needed to be disadvantaged in some way, there was a points system however an asd diagnosis counted as points. Dd got points for asd, low income post code and failing state school despite us being on an income around top 10%, and us both having postgraduate degrees.

It's definitely worth applying

Or look at Debate Chamber for humanities. Again excellent and good value. Not Uni based or Uni run but would probably give them a similar experience

Oooh my daughter might like that.

Your DS should be eligible for Gloucestershire with his ASD diagnosis, and anyone can apply for the Newcastle one, they only refer to the criteria if it's oversubscribed

I will look into Gloucestershire again. Thanks. Just to respond to some of the other suggestions in case this thread is useful to anyone else in the future:

cambridge - applications are through the Sutton Trust, only state school students are eligible

NTU doesn’t offer humanities for summer places

smallpiece are indeed for non-humanities subjects

debate chamber isn’t residential

Do these tend to be highly academic or are there any that are more suited to someone middle of the field?

The one he did was for biochemists, computer scientists and another science based subject. It wasn’t that academic but the kids did a presentation at the end and they were all absolutely lovely, articulate and very genuine. I have high hopes for the future if this is the calibre of our future leaders.

Got a feeling Bath does something specifically for autistic students, and DS went to one with Exeter on the basis that he was autistic but not specifically for people with ASD. The Exeter one was all funded including travel.
Just found the Bath info:
https://www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/summer-schools-for-autistic-students-thinking-of-going-to-university/

www.immerse.education/

These people offer them at a range of Universities. You can also enter competitions to win some of the fees back.

My (comp ed) DC variously attended day and residential courses at unis in Y12. What I would say is that the courses very much focused on the specific degree subject and were very structured right through into the evenings - and so not really indicative of the expectations of self-directed study at uni or of the sometimes potentially disordered reality of undergraduate life. So I think you need to be clear about how such residentials might genuinely help in the decision mix.

In addition to Open Days (which are also not very indicative but useful for specific fact finding), my DC found the guides tours run by some universities to be helpful, as they were quite measured experiences, available at various points throughout the year, and gave an opportunity to ask the student guides to paint a general picture of life as an undergrad at that uni. Travelling to different unis to undertake such tours also gave a chance to appreciate just how near or far the specific location was from home.

The Uni of Birmingham run Pathways to Birmingham summer schools but they are aimed at state school / disadvantaged students.

www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/open-days/other-events-on-campus/summer-schools

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/apply/pathways-to-birmingham

Southampton does an earth / marine sciences summer school:

www.unitasterdays.com/events/event/71672/ocean-and-earth-science-summer-school-at-university-of-southampton

Kings London https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/series/summer-info-session-kings-pre-university?alpsource=meta&alppmedium=newsfeed&alpcampaign=CMP-37519-M7L5G6&alppterm=uk&alpcontent=pre-uni&alpp_id=120214690669420556

Funnily spent most of yesterday looking at the same thing, as my DS is also ASD and wants to study economics. He’s at a state tech college now after being in a private school until GCSEs and therefore also not eligible for Sutton Trust placements or anything similar either. A bit taken aback by the costs of them too.

There are ones done by Oxford Uni (Oxford Scolastica) which are £8K and definitely not geared at ‘normal’ students (or ND ones) - mainly overseas and/or wealthy students, I think - and I am concerned about what inferences admissions staff would make about these courses if a DC talked about them in their personal statements?

I was expecting to find something that cost @ £1000-1500pw that would been accessible to YP of all backgrounds, which I think would mean my DS would enjoy it more?

Oxford Scholastica is a private limited company that hires Oxford University facilities and may employ current tutors and graduates but is completely separate from the university.

Oxford Scholastica is separate from Oxford University, and it is important to understand that we have no formal connection with the University.

Oxford University does not run summer schools for international teenagers. The University runs a highly respected summer school for UK students from disadvantaged backgrounds, called Uniq, but it does not offer summer courses for international students under the age of 18.

Oxford Scholastica is not formally connected with or endorsed by the University, and it’s important to understand that we don’t offer university preparation courses.

Interestingly, Bobby Seagull was a director for a short time about 10 years ago.

That’s really useful as I was going around in circles with all the different course sites yesterday and my head began to explode - it confirms it is not for us. As with OP, though, not eligible for the UNIQ programme due to having been to private secondary school.

The tech college my DS goes to seems to rate the Warwick pre uni course, but I wonder about how similar it is to the uni experience for YP needing a taster?

There’s a FB group called WIWIKAU (what I wish I knew about university) and a subgroup for parents of ND students which might be worth joining so that you can post to see how other parents have/did prepare students for uni, perhaps even posting about pre-uni courses? They discuss things like whether distance should be considered (my AuDHD DD19 has applied to unis within 90 mins of home or the GPs so she can get home quickly in an emergency/melt down), you get a sense of which unis have been the most supportive (eg, Reading, Kent, Bournemouth and UCL have come up lots as having brilliant support and student mentor programmes), etc. not sure if that might be helpful?