University open days and parents.

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Having been to one by herself and one with me (engineering works ruining the train).

We would both love to know,

1. Why everyone seems to take a parent. (And even a very good, but bored sick 8y sibling)
   
   And especially
   
   Why do 16/17/18 year olds sit there letting their parents do the talking!

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Non of wanting to share this with your parents is odd, DD1 spends more time being sociable with us than most teens do, because she can't escape without us giving her a lift.

I just thought parents got in the way and made the whole thing feel a bit subdued. I felt timetabling some time with prospective students on their own might have allowed them to mingle and chat with the large number of really nice student guides the university had found.

(The younger sibling was probably unavoidable, but they did say one guest only, probably because there were two separate bus trips and space was very tight. Oh and now I know why DDs hated their 5 seat across school bus)

[skylark2]

I do think that needs to be some consideration at some point of uni being something the child is going to do alone.

I'm not saying anyone here has done it, but I think it's important that the uni application process isn't "parents help me research, parents take me to open days, parents ring up the admissions dept with any issues, parents help me with my application, parents take me to interviews, parents sort out my finance, parents sort out my accommodation, the very first time they're not the ones driving the process is when they drop me off to start the first term and go home."

I do know parents who have done this. Their kids didn't graduate. There's an important difference between a kid taking a parent to an open day and a parent taking a kid to an open day.

[BirdintheWings]

I think it's important that the uni application process isn't "parents help me research, parents take me to open days, parents ring up the admissions dept with any issues, parents help me with my application, parents take me to interviews, parents sort out my finance, parents sort out my accommodation, the very first time they're not the ones driving the process is when they drop me off to start the first term and go home."

Frankly, Skylark, that's what I fear for DS (who has some SEN). If we drive things along, he could end up starting and failing a course he doesn't really want to do.

If we stop driving things along, he will drift into a sort of paralysis of indecision and fear. He does this for any change, not just the big ones. Elephant's description of 'shy 10-year-olds' is about right for DS.

Without some sort of structure to his life, though, and some contact with people his age, he becomes very rapidly and seriously depressed. Oh the joys...

[skylark2]

Bird, you have my sympathy. It must be really difficult to decide where the line is between "DS will be able to do this with support to get there" and "DS will be unable to do this the moment the support isn't there 24/7."

My second one doesn't have SEN but he is one of these kids who almost always says he doesn't want to do something new. It's a happy balancing act of insist / nag / suggest / remind how much he enjoyed (something else he said he didn't want to do) / leave him to it...

He's improving slowly, and I hope he'll improve a bit more before he has to start with the uni decisions (year 11 atm).

[BirdintheWings]

Thanks, Skylark. Just occasionally when I step right back, he steps up. Other times, he freezes and panics, and we have to hope he'll have enough awareness left to phone us for help.

Sadly our local uni is (ahem) a bit hard to get into, so not really an option.

[SauvignonBlanche]

BirdintheWings, it sounds as if we're going the through the same thing, DS's would do nothing if we left him to it and gets cross when we try and encourage him to show initiative.

Our local Uni is fairly good and does the course he wants to do, I think he'd be better off there but he wants to go to another nearby city, though he's done nothing about it, I've booked the visit.

The SENCO said she was going to set up a meeting for him about his application but hasn't done so.

[Horsemad]

Don'cha just love all these super confident DC?!

A fair proportion of teens are shy/gawky/drifting. If left to their own devices, there's no telling where they'd end up.

As long as I'm expected to make a sizeable contribution to their uni experience, then I'll be involved.

[VivaLeBeaver]

The uni might be right next to a train station but the home address might not be.
Many teenagers don't drve yet.

When I did uni open days I took myself to Nottingham as it was easy to get to on the train. Mum drove me to Wolverhampton as it would have involved aout 4 train changes and wouldn't have got home till the following day but only 2 hour drive.

Couldn't be arsed to go to middlesborough for the open day, seemed too far. Put it down as my first choice and first time I went there was the day I moved!

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

But all this still doesn't explain why my DFs, brought up in the wilds of mid Wales, some in houses that didn't even have phones. Could get on a train to London and go to an open day without for a split second considering taking a parent or a friend.

Why and when did it change?

And don't say money, money is a red herring. Very many DC of my generation didn't get full grants. Very few of us worked in term time. The bank of mum and dad has always paid out.

At some point parents developed rota blades and started hovering and I think it's time they backed off just a little.

[lunar1]

It's no different to your Rotsblades on your dd's second visit though is it. Why didn't you just back of, why was it ok for you to be there but no other parents? Do you think you are special and your reasons are more valid than anyone else's?

[Ragwort]

I tend to agree with Elephants - probably because of my own experience when, as far as I can remember, everyone went on their own to university open days and interviews. I remember going up north (different country to the soft south ), staying over night with some students whom I had obviously never met before - had a great time . My parents never drove me to and from university either.

I'd be interested to know when/how it all started to change .......... especially as I have a child who may be going to university in a few days.

[MrSheen]

I went in 1994 so would have been doing open days in '92/93 and there were definitely a smattering of parents then. My Mum came to one of mine. I can remember my Dad driving my bro to one, which would have been '88 ish, but for all I know he sat in the pub. I think if the campus is not right in the city then people are more likely to hang around. Maybe that's a factor, distance between open day greeting point and John Lewis.

I find it absolutely baffling that someone can go to their child's open day, and assume that every other parent apart from themselves is only there because of some deficiency either in their child, themselves, or their parenting.

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

I'm not questioning other parents decisions to go to any particular open day.

(I had very specific reasons practical and personal for being at this particular one. Had parents not been welcome at the event. I would have gone for a look round the town because it's practicalities get very mixed reviews).

My question still stands as is it beneficial for parents not just be allowed, but apparently expected to attend.

I still feel it really subdues the atmosphere, as I'm certain many teens are quieter when their parents are watching.

[antimatter]

How do you know they aren't quiet because they are around other people they don't know?

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Maybe, DD1 does complain her class are quiet full stop. Drive the maths mistress crazy refusing to answer questions.

Unlike county music events where everyone chatters and is really friendly despite coming from a huge range of schools (comp, grammar and private and they don't seem to care).

I just think just as they share a passion for singing. DCs who share the same scientific passion might mingle, chat and learn something if the parents weren't there.

[antimatter]

I don't thing they would mingle.
One day visit to a uni is like sightseeing through a keyhole - you have glance, listen to a lecture, look around and go home.
After all most of them are going to visit at least 4-5 others in the near future.

We set off at 6 AM and were back 7 PM. 2.5 hours each way. We were both shattered. My dd is very sociable but she wouldn't chat to any other kids like there there. That wan't reason why we went to an Open day! There will be days for offer holders when she may decide to go and there will be no parents then!
There were hundred of us walking up and down the campus...

She chatted to student ambassadors and others who were there to inform about university.

[Nanadookdookdook]

However, much I believe in roots and wings, I don't want to let my PFB go


Aaaaaaah.

I'd wondered why this pointless thread kept going.

[nokidshere]

What a weird thread! I can't wait to go to the open days for my PFB, he is super excited about going (assuming he gets in of course) and wants us to be there. He has already decided where he is going and what he is doing (again assuming he gets the grades) so we wont be influencing him.

I don't get all the "they are 18, an adult, kick them out and let them get on with it" comments. I still ring my mum for advice, or take her along if I am choosing something and I am 53! Not because I cant do it myself, or because I am lacking in confidence, but because we like to do things together and share experiences.

[Unexpected]

Why and when did it change?

Maybe it changed when the parents of prospective students became as well-educated as their offspring and therefore more likely to find the process interesting, rather than baffling, and be able to ask relevant questions? I did a very specialised, and difficult to get into, university degree. My parents, through no fault of their own, were poorly educated and there would have been absolutely no point in them attending any Open Days with me. They would have been completely overwhelmed with the whole thing. On the other hand, I now have a university education as does dh, and it is probably more interesting for us to attend Open Days with DS. Thirty something years ago (eek!) when I was starting university, there were a number of parents who hadn't finished secondary school among my cohort, I suspect you won't find many of those among today's university parents.

I know somebody mentioned paying fees, accommodation etc as a red herring but surely the amounts involved today are way in excess of what some of us paid? There is no way that my parents paid the equivalent of c£50k for my university education, which is the equivalent of what we're looking at today. I want to see what we're getting for our money!

[TheWordFactory]

As someone who works at two universities, I'm going to give another side OP.

Quite often when applicants come without parents they ask nothing. Zero. Zilch. Sometimes they don't come to the talks, just have a wander around with their mates.

The reps from the SU see it as their job to make things go with a swing...partaaaayyyy... and students can leave having gleaned very little about the course, the accommodation, the facilities etc.

Parents, providing they're not overbearing, often ensure that the 17 year olds at least vaguely think about the practicalities and not whether they think it's going to be fun. Given how much it's going to cost these young people, I think the parents are pretty wise to at least try to ask the right questions.

I would also say, that I think a lot of my colleagues, the academics, are completely unrealistic about teenagers. They expect their first and only consideration to be their unending love of the prof's subject . Parents tend to wonder how much the halls of residence actually cost (and other trivia).

[Lancelottie]

When I applied, there were no Open Days; you looked up the university prospectus, applied, and first saw it when you went to interview (midweek, usually; so my parents would have been at work).

Am I just really old?

[chemenger]

There were Open Days when I went to University, that was in 1979. We went in groups, no parents involved. Mostly we did a quick sweep round the stands then went shopping - this was the pattern of Open Days until about a decade ago when parents started coming and things got more serious.

[BrendaBlackhead]

Surely there's a halfway house?

There's nothing wrong with a parent accompanying their dc to a university visit. As others have noted, it is more of a big decision than in the (good) old days. What is wrong is when the entire family comes in tow. I have read about grandparents coming along, fgs. Also, the pushy parents who won't let other students get near the staff. I must admit I have only witnessed this at sixth form college open days, but I was cross that there was ds, meekly hovering (with me at a respectful (unembarrassing) distance) and a Mummy would barge in front and use the "We" about the course. "We" are thinking of doing English Literature, or "We" would like to know more about the course.

I have seen this on MN too. "We are doing 5 A Levels," or "We are expecting an Oxford interview."