I also wanted say that I agree with you about the usefulness of open days. I dragged my DD along to one or two at the end of her 4th year. None of her school friends were going because it was several hours journey away AND they were on Saturdays so they didn’t get a day off school. Thankfully about half the kids there had a parent with them so she wasn’t too embarrassed by me.
They were for the particular course she wanted to do - only two options in Scotland . She totally fell in love with one uni and the course and it helped her keep motivated during the long slog through 5th year.
I also “ made “ her do some work experience in her chosen career in the summer after 4th year. This was so useful as some of her friends didn’t do this until after 5th year, to then discover that they hated it.
One had been dead set on medicine since he was young, did some shadowing in the summer after 5th year, loathed every minute of it and had not a clue what else to do. Cue total panic.
There’s not much time for the early applicants between getting higher results in early August and having to have their UCAS forms In my late September ( her schools deadline for references ). 7 weeks isn’t a lot of time to change your minds about unis or even courses, let alone your entire career.
Even those who don’t need to have their forms in until Christmas have so much else to do, with assignments / projects in 3-4 subjects and the ridiculous amount of paid work / volunteering / extra curric that most of them do as well.
There’s always threads on MN with parents asking about particular courses / unis because their child is suddenly interested in November and it’s far too late for visits, so it’s all a bit of a stab in the dark.
I know there is a lot of discussion on the English uni threads about the cool parents who did nothing to help or encourage their kids with post school choices / UCAS etc and the evilness of “ helicopter parents “.
I can only assume that their kids are much older than ours or at private schools which do it all for them or are just incredibly motivated and organised. Any open days I went to had a lot of parents at them so it’s not just bossy old me.
My kids are at a very good state school, but even there one of them was given totally the wrong about subject requirements for 6th year. If DD hadn’t been told by her evil nagging mother to email the uni concerned and CHECK, she would have lost the option of applying there.
The question was if they would accept Course B as a substitute for their required subject A. In fact the subject admissions officer emailed DD saying that they did accept it. Closely followed the next day by another email saying they had missed out the word “ not”!!!!!
Moral of this story - get it in writing if it’s decision critical .
One of her friends was told by the school that he needed to sit the UKCAT for vet med ( you don’t ) but don’t for dentistry ( you do ). One was told you need H Physics for medicine ( you don’t, it’s H biology and H chemistry and usually one of these at AH grade B ).
So you can’t rely 100% on the school, you need to get your kids to double check or do it yourself.
BTW we didn’t pressure our kids to do any particular course or even go to uni at all. We just encouraged they to get off their back sides and go and DO STUFF - visit unis, talk to people we know about their careers, do work experience / shadowing well in advance. And check everything important.
The most useful thing for one child was a few weeks one summer working in an office, which she HATED. Because it immediately ruled out the vast number of jobs that basically involve sitting at a desk. Result.