When to start University visits?

[justteanbiscuits]

Son is Year 12 - should he be starting University visits?? He has a list of 9 universities he wants to visit - is there a central place for University open days to see when they are? Are they subject specific, or do you just rock up to standard open days?

Start of a whole new journey and no idea where to start with it!

You will need to look on individual university websites and usually you need to book. IME there are mostly generic days but there will be subject talks (you may need to book these).

When? Sooner the better as they tend to be on the same days. Many will have happened for autumn (usually in Sept esp at mire popular unis) so maybe look for next summer. Unis that are recruiting (ie less popular) like my local one have days through till January so do check if that’s any on your list.

With dd we went to about five or six in July year 12/sept year 13. We did get open day fatigue so I would try to reduce nine down a bit.

They opendays seems to start in the summer and continue to early November, but with a big hiatus from mid July- mid Sept. And many of the open days clash, though most unis over 2-3 dates. It’s actually a bit gruelling. We’ve done 6 and are Open day-ed out. Had planned to do SOuthampton at least in 2 weeks, but DS is actually getting stressed by the fact that he loses much of the weekend travelling to them when he needs to be studying or revising.

My advice would be to really look at the website and work out - by ranking and course content and his realistically predicted grades - which would be the top 4 and go to those. Try to make sure there is a mix of city and campus unis as they have a completely different feel. Then bear in mind that there will be Offer Open Days that you can attend if you didn’t manage the general open day so when DC has offers in hand you can chose from there?

I’d say (having booked 8, but completely burned out by 5) that 9 is too many - but you and DC may have more stamina! There are lots of online virtual open days to see facilities and get a feel so it’s worth checking those out too.

yes agree with @CautiousLurker01 meant to mention offer holder says – DD found these more useful as targeted at her course but ofc you have to have applied so you need to know you like the place beforehand!

Lol at Open-day-ed out yessss! I recall we had Leeds booked and DD was just "I can;t bear to go to another English talk where they say 'We cover everything from Beowulf to Beyoncé' (they all say that and it’s bollux anyway)". By then she was pretty clear on what she wanted so more visits were not going to do much.

Just make sure to cover a campus uni, a city uni and one that’s a bit of a mix, and somewhere small (assuming city covers big usually) so they get a feel of what they’d be doing day to day in terms of travel, food, going out. Rather than every one on the list.

Definitely now. Because if you leave it till the summer some may clash. There’s normally some in oct/nov. Go to as many as possible. Then any remaining ones in june/july. Still leaves next September/oct if necessary as he’s finishing his application off.

it’s not normally subject specific but will be a university wide open day.

LOL yes - the talks sound the same after a while! For DS, they are all members of the Inst of Physics so first 2 years are the same pretty much wherever you go. It does feel as though they are all reading the same script, editing for grades and number of applicants per place! Material things - like equipment, research areas of the staff/3rd year project areas, library facilities etc - can be researched on line.

DS was pleased he made the effort to go to Manchester this weekend, as it’s a city he’s never been to before and the feel was campus like regardless. He thinks it will be his no 1 choice (it’s 4hours away 😭)… but he was kn*ckered this morning when he left for college.

I’ve no idea how people are navigating trips to Scotland and Wales from other parts of the UK.

If there are unis you are particularly interested in get your son to look on their websites. If you look under open days there is usually an option to register your interest. They will then email him when booking for the next one opens. He will probably also need to book onto any relevant subject talks. Things like campus tours and accommodation tours, you can normally just join on hte day.

I would definitely see of there are any between now and Christmas. They take so much time - if they are further away it can involve overnight stays. Leaving them all to the Spring/early summer or next Autumn gets more difficult as they start getting really tied down with revision etc.

Thanks! It didn't cross my mind that visits would need to start now until he mentioned he's booked himself onto one this coming Saturday!!!

4 of the Uni's are London based, and we live in London, so they're relatively easy for him. The 9 he has chosen are the ones that have the best reputation for the subject he wants to do. This will probably get narrowed down by the ones that offer the specific course he wants, but he wants to learn more about similar courses. (he wants to do Pure maths, but is interested in looking at maths courses that might have more employment options at the end!)

Great that there are 4 ‘local ones’. You can usually be done by 2pm if you book the earlier subject talks - all the London ones (Imperial and KCL in particular) were very well organised so you can be quite efficient in your time.

I think looking at a few now is useful - it can be inspirational and help concentrate the mind, especially when there focus in waning during revision!

@justteanbiscuitsmake sure he includes a less popular (lower offer) uni as well as he would be advised to have an insurance on his form.

Now. We went to about six, but only one did my DD apply to (she had a 180 degree switch on her subject so three became irrelevant). We then went to two offer holder days and she chose one of them. Definitely book - some will only let you in to the subject talks/sample lectures if you’re on the list.
I’d go to as many as you can, as a few that seemed a good match on paper were struck off on visiting. Three of the ones we did involved an overnight stay as were five plus hours away but that gave us a chance to look around the town too.

You can use https://www.opendays.com/ as a guide to when they are, need to confirm on individual websites. I'd say spread it out too especially if there is some travel involved. They often have them on both Fri and Sat so if you can find two fairly near each other with the same weekend you can get both in one weekend, that's useful if they have other weekend commitments like jobs and sports. Some have virtual tours on their websites which can be useful too.

When do they get a realistic idea of predicted grades? DS also in Y12 and would love to start looking, but it's difficult to know where to start when you don't know what grades to expect. Also, very hard to predict grades when they've only been studying the A Level for a month!

He got 8s for GCSE in all three of his A Level subjects and it's one of these subjects that he wants to study at Uni, though there are various related options.

I think there is an algorithm where the 6th forms use GCSEs to predict likely A Level outcomes. Will see if I can find it on google. It’s fairly accurate, I understand.

I would say start now if you'll be making an early application (eg medicine / Oxbridge). Otherwise there's no rush although I'd still recommend looking at one or two this autumn if possible, even if just your most local uni to get a feel for things.

Open days are quite fun - you might get hooked

Imperial, KCL, UCL and LSE (though LSE is a complete maybe) are the London list. He is doing extra curricular outreach with KCL, Imperial and UCL and already had a talk from Imperial students, so they're actually less of a must see when it comes to courses.. but going to seeing the vibe etc would be important I think (he is only focusing on the academics, not the social side of things, so I do need to push that)

His individual teachers gave us "expected grades" which they based on his results (not just grade, but actual result). His expected are A star, A star, A, though he got 9 in all three subjects.

(It won't let me type an asterisk for star!!!)

Oxbridge is indeed on the list. Very very definitely not medicine though - we have spent many years making sure no one pushes either of our kids toward medicine!

There absolutely can be good employment opportunities from a pure maths course. A relative of mine is a maths student at Oxbridge and has been headhunted by a financial sector firm. They pay him a lot of money for a summer internship (more than I earn in a year) and have stated that at the end of third year if both parties want to proceed there’ll be a job for him. A maths degree from a good university will absolutely open doors.

Oh, @MNHQ I’m sorry if anything I posted above was inappropriate? It was just one of many random links that you can google, enter your grades in and gives you an idea of what A Level grades you might be expect to get as a result?

He is quite adamant he doesn't want to work in finance at the moment - but highly paid summer internships would be quite excellent :D

Sorry - I was replying to @LittleGreenDuck who was asking how you get predicted grades so early on in Y12?

But she should do as you’ve done and ask school as they use the same/similar algorithm and update as the year progresses according to end of topic tests and mock exams (I mentioned this in the now deleted post)

@CautiousLurker01 Thank you. Unfortunately I didn't see the link before it was deleted, but I shall ask Google. DS has his first academic review coming up just before half term, so he will raise the question there.

@justteanbiscuits Sorry for jumping on your thread!