Oxford open day next week :how are we supposed to fit it all in? How do we know which colleges to look at

[Opendaymaddnes]

Hello I'm trying to get my head around the open day and distances. The subject talk is quite early but it looks like we could spend all day at the subject talk area meeting tutors but we need to look at accommodation options also and colleges.

I've googled the best colleges for her subject and I hope to visit three? Does this sound like a plan? Is this what uther people do?

How exciting! I teach year 13 and was lucky to be able to go on an Oxford visit for prospective students. I went to everything including an accommodation tour (though not with my students as they would have died or embarrassment to have their teacher with them) and had the best time. What a beautiful city!

So agree, the subject talk / department tour is most relevant - be sure the degree course is the right fit.

But after that decide some criteria for college choice that are important to the individual. So for example me these were;
-Offers the course
-Central
-Co-Ed
-Rich - sounds silly but this made a huge difference to me. I was not (still not) financially secure, totally reliant on student loans etc etc. My college being wealthy meant easy access to bursaries for travel / experiences I would not have had otherwise, and accommodation was reasonable
-First year accommodation all on site and catered - everyone in it together
-Accommodation available for all years of the course (may not be on site after first year) - we had flats of 3-4 people all college owned
-Reputation for friendliness

What’s important will be different to everyone, eg sports facilities / teams / academic performance / other interests.

But decide and then visit 3ish that fit the criteria.

I ended up at Jesus College - it fit, it was great 🙂

DC produced the short list but beyond subjects availability looked at:

• did they provide accommodation for all three years
• and where
• whether the tutors specialised in what interested them about the subject
• could you walk on the grass
• social mix
• general ‘feel’ (“no portraits of old dead white men”)

Final decider: closest to subject lecture halks

We did the open top bus tour which goes round most of the colleges.

@foxglovetree do you know if all colleges reallocate students? Do they all recommend students to other colleges and accept them from others or are there any that only consider those who applied there?

DS has been looking for this information but not found a clear answer yet. He’s wondering whether to apply as an open candidate and if (and it’s a big if) he’s successful just see where he’s allocated.

At the end of interviews, colleges indicate to central admissions if there was someone they might have taken had they had more places. It isn’t a requirement for them to do so.

Central admissions can then send this applicant’s details on to colleges who might not have ended up with a full quota. It goes some way toward getting good candidates placed somewhere.

But it’s not a mathematically precise process. It’s a safer strategy to choose a less “oversubscribed” college in the first instance so you are on their radar for their first cut.

It’s not rocket science to identify them. If it was founded centuries ago and has queues of tourists, or meadows, or quads or quads or dining halls that are used in movies, it’s probably more oversubscribed than a more modern college on the outskirts of the town. Bear in mind the education will likely be the same.

Yes I assumed this was the main reason -
in the late 90s I went all over the country for uni interviews and open days all by myself.

that said, there is no excuse for the DCs not taking some initiative and deciding themselves where they want to visit

Oh so sorry @Muchtoomuchtodo i kind of said but didn’t actually say, yes, applying as an open candidate is not a silly thing to do by any means. It will allow his application to end up somewhere it doesn’t necessarily have to fight quite so hard. Still hard mind you! An open application offer is still a huge achievement. It’s just helping to stack the odds a little better.

Same. I went with a friend and we had a great time exploring the city. Cambridge I went by myself and had an equally great time. I don't get why parents who had this independence themselves (I assume; no 18 yr old would have been seen dead at an open day with their parents in the 90s) aren't enabling their children to have the same experience.

It varies a bit by subject. My dc's department decided centrally in department who would get offers. Do get your dc to ask all this at open day. We found they were very open and informative about the process

My DS applied to Cambridge and basically used a few non academic things as criteria (based on a leaflet provided on the open day which had an overview of all colleges)

• accommodation options over the 3 year
• access to gym in college
• had a college team in his preferred sport
• was reasonably central

We then walked around those colleges and spent probably about 10-15 mins on each of them deciding if we liked the vibe or not. He quickly seemed to make this decision based on random things sometimes (didnt like the students hosts in one of them for example).

We then went home and looked at the admissions stats for his shortlist for his subject and used that as a further guide

None of the colleges will be terrible so I figured random selection criteria were fine !

Ds got a place on a subject taster day and we can’t do Oxford and back in a day from where we live, so I went with him for that. I explored the city and he did the day by himself. The open day was only a few weeks later but we opted not to go to that because it was quite expensive with train travel/ hotel.
DS also decided to do an open application. His reasoning was that he’s easy going and likely to be happy at any Oxford college and often you don’t get what you’ve chosen anyhow so why spend hours researching when it’s mostly out of your control.
He did get an offer and only then did he spend time learning about the college. Luckily, it’s one that will house him for all four years. He’s quite happy with that and went to the offer holder day by himself as it started at noon meaning he could travel in a day. Just has to make his offer now.

Practical info: arrive at park & ride VERY EARLY. Sometimes I have shown up at 9.30 and only just snagged a spot. As an alternative try for a park on my drive place. Some are pricey but worth it to take the stress out of parking.

I went with dcs to open days - we had nice days out. But just be the +1. You are there as chauffeur and opinion-giver. Gruesome is whole families traipsing round taking up space and also domineering pushy tiger moms. One was eager to tell me that her ds wouldn’t be intimidated in an interview as he was the debating champion of the US 🙄

Yes

so completely don’t worry about colleges

the only thing I would say is that try not to pick one furthest from the dept where the lectures will be

May be because for Oxford you apply to a college but Durham you apply to the uni without college preference, until you get an offer - then you can put pref

Yes, that's true there were more college tours at the offer holder day. I think after the offer, the applicant has to rank all the colleges in order of preference for Durham.

@foxglovetree {mention:Okiedokie123}@Okiedokie123 thanks so much for the extra info there.

It's a great shame that unfortunately the lack of comprehension and sheer ignorance has unfortunately opened the door to the debate whether parents should accompany children to open days.

Mumsnet ethos is to be supportive helpful site and I can't fathom how coming on a thread to make nasty snide comments that have no relation to the question asked for fills that ethos.

This is not aibu and I have not asked. Should I accompany my dd to uni visits.

I'd like to have some explanation as to why a thread in eduction has allowed nasty rude comments.

That was my logic when selecting colleges.

sorry, but I think this is a bit misleading.

It's absolutely true to say that you shouldn't worry too much about college choice. In the end, they are all part of the same University, they are more similar than they are different and the vast majority of students will end up perfectly happy with and loyal to their choice.

However, it would give the wrong impression to say that the reason it makes little difference is because students can access each other's bars and (some) events, as if this is all a college offers. A college provides many things that are only available to students at its college.

A college provides tutorial teaching. The tutors are different across colleges, there will be different styles and (I'm afraid) different amounts of teaching, and different shares of teaching done by graduate students and other temporary staff. The balance between university and college teaching (and exchanges between colleges) varies from subject to subject, but the college always matters.

A college provides accommodation and meals, of different qualities and prices (and a few don't provide it for the whole degree).

A college provides all sorts of welfare support, financial support, sports facilities, music facilities, common room membership, other college clubs and societies, college only events.

Most students do most of their socialising within their college.

@Opendaymaddnes
Before visiting - I looked at various stats for colleges - proximity to Dept; size; % private/state; tutors in DD’s subject (Science) - number, their specialty; facilities; accommodation types. Oxford has lots of various stats by college available.

Made a short list of Old vs Newer; Small vs Larger - and tried to visit 3-4 in total - of different types to get a feeling.
Started with Dept talk, went from there.

Also - caught subject specific tutor chat in one of Colleges, to get a general feel.

In sciences - students have lectures and practicals at the Dept - and then tutorials at the college. If there are no resident tutors -
they come from another college.

In the end - DD picked the one she liked for application. But eventually had to choose another one as other kid from school was applying for the same college/subject and school advised against them both applying there.

DD picked another college for application - but having seen a few was helpful in her eventual choice - she knew what ‘type’ she was looking for, and info online/virtual visits give you good idea of what they are like.

We also looked at stats for reallocation from
colleges - as people often crowd to the most beautiful / or closest colleges to their Dept - and more from those get re-allocated post admissions test.

Now we just need to wait till August and 🤞.

The details of the process will depend on the course, not the college. Colleges don't get to decide the process.

For all courses there will be at least some reallocation, for some courses it mostly takes place before interviews, for some courses it is mostly after interviews. The aim is to ensure that nobody is disadvantaged by applying to a more oversubscribed college, while still respecting people's preferences as far as posssible. The staff at open days will be able to tell you more about how it works for a particular course.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to maximize your chances, it was a good idea to put in an open offer and be allocated to one of the colleges with the lowest demand relative to places. These days, I think there is little value in doing this. You may as well express a preference, knowing that reallocation of candidates will even up the chances for you.

@irregularegular if you don't get the college you want and are given a not great college can you appeal?

We didn't bother planning which colleges to visit. DC went to the dept talk and then we did some random colleges nearby and then some others.
For the college tours we asked if they had anyone studying DC's chosen subject to show us round so we could also ask about the dept etc which was helpful.

Lectures are in the department (or elsewere eg exam schools on high st). Also labs etc for sciences are obviously in the department. Tutorials will mostly be in college, at least for the first two years. In final year tutorials may well be with tutors in other colleges who specialise in that particular topic. Some students may also use department libraries, though colleges have libraries too. Again, the quality may vary by college/subject.

No. It's take it or leave it.

Obviously there is a complaints process if you think your application wasn't dealt with appropriately, but "I don't like the college" is not a valid complaint!