2015 university open days

[hellsbells99]

So, following on from the year 12 thread, here is our open day visits thread!

DS failed to book Exeter, so we just dropped in on our way back from Cornwall in August. We poked around the library and maths building, and looked at accommodation through the window. DS really liked it, preferred it to Nottingham or Southampton. He's going to Cardiff and Brum next weekend with his father so will have quite a range to consider. We're going to Warwick on the 26th, which is still DS's favourite on paper as the maths course looks so brilliant, lots of optional interesting sounding modules.

We parked at West Quay for Southampton as well, but it meant driving past the university at 10.10, finding the car park, finding the bus, waiting for the bus in the enormous queue and not getting to the university until 11.10, missing the maths talk at 11 o' clock. Then the same at the other end with the addition of sitting in a queue to get out of the car park for 20 minutes. If I had my time again I'd have dropped him off at the university and then parked.

Just come to yhid thread to ask when do you visit unis yr11 or yr12? Do your dcs' schools advise you which unis to visit?

Not yhid. It s/b this.

Thank you. Just asked Ds and he had "overlooked" 26th at Warwick thinking he'd have to wait until October when it clashes with Holloway! Still dithering over York.

Lemon888, we visited on the open days in July of Y12 and now September of Y13. No help from school (at least DS didn't ask for any.) He researched them from their websites. Open days are often only set a couple of months in advance, so in some cases he registered with the university to get an email advising him when they had set dates. Most seem to want you to book to come. He was looking at mainly Russell Group unis which narrowed his list down. HTH

LIZS I hope you weren't too late to book Warwick? The talks are getting pretty much booked up.

Lol we've not got as far as actually booking ! Will get Ds onto it today.

Thanks Ellen

Lemon - here is the calendar for open days www.opendays.com/calendar/
With DD1, we did 1 in the summer of year 11 and 1 at the start of year 12 (both localish) as she wasn't sure what course she wanted to do and also just to find out what an open day was and to show DD a university.

We are off to Nottingham this Saturday and Liverpool on the 26th and I think we are done then.
DD will make her 5 choices from: Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds (current favourite) and Durham (probably not on the shortlist). She didn't like Warwick (I've never seen it - she went with school). She may possibly include Oxbridge but I hope not as I don't think DD would be a 'fit' there. She is not including any London ones have you see the price of accommodation?

I have lots of scarves but not a MN one - what should it look like?

Lizs- I quite liked the S'Oton accommodation (we saw the halls closest to campus, I forget the name) but the kitchens were teeny tiny I thought.

Next up for us are Birmingham and Sussex. We have cancelled the trip to Exeter (Cornwall). AS results were such that we can now consider other options so will rely on paper research and go to offer holder days if needs be.

We have had communication from Birminghsm warning about parking. Driving is way easier and quicker for us so any guidance would be welcome. We are prepared to get there early if we need to!

Thanks for the link helsbels. It looks like we could do Sussex and Kent after all, so much for letting Ds plan the itinerary.

I am envious of everyone zipping round the country. Its going to have to be paper for us. Then ones we could get to like KCL, and which she is genuinely interested in, are full.

Also thanks for the good wishes. She is fine but the real pity is she is starting term absolutely exhausted and emotionally drained. I think we were all asleep by 9.00pm yesterday. Its was always going to be a tough term. I think they try to cover the bulk of the A2 syllabus, plus she has the fun/responsibility of being at the top of the school. There has also been one 18th birthday party, staying over and not much sleep. Lets hope most of the rest of her friends are summer babies.

The next step is predictions. Schools seem to have quite different approaches. Her school is fairly strict and will normally only predict an A if the AS UMS is above about 90, and don't normally take into account plans for resits. (They say that for maths/science the AS is a very strong predictor of A2 grade.) Other schools seem willing to predict a grade above. I know DS was asked to supply his UMS scores to most of the places he applied to. DD probably needs at least one A prediction.

LIZS. I would not worry too much about booking at Warwick, other than a place in the car park. You might need to find an alternative. The big talks were repeated several times during the day and though not booked (DS only booked me into the car park!) I managed to get into one of these. I dont think they checked to thoroughly and your DS could probably sneak into his subject talk. I went to a lot of the minor talks on things like studying abroad, where there was no problem getting in, and which meant between us we had better coverafge. Ditto there were plenty of spaces later in the day on campus and accomodation tours etc. I thought Warwick was great. DS was less convinced, perhaps because he found it hard to envisage living anywhere but London.

Dunlurking. Glad to hear he has made a decision about what he wants to study. I went round with DS, who was very course orientated and the Exeter course simply did not appeal. Instead I kept thinking how much my daughter would enjoy it. However the medicine course is PBL which she wants to avoid, so not for her either.

NorthernLurker. Perhaps we need a new mums of medical applicants thread in Higher Education. Not least it would be nice to have help and advice from previous years' mums of applicants. Its going to be a long year.

Visited Soton this Saturday too. DS generally liked it, no black marks at this stage, but we didn’t have time to discuss accommodation at all. What are the fees, Homebythesea? It is password protected on their site.

Homebythesea - parking at Birmingham wasn't a problem. They had set up park and ride type facilities on nearby school fields with minibuses. Everything was signposted and well organised.

I confess I didn't pay much attention to costs at S'Oton!

Hellsbells thanks for that reassurance- the email was very doomy, they obviously don't want people to come by car!

Dd went to Exeter on Saturday - loved the campus, loved the food stalls (brought back half an incredible passionfruit flapjack for me ), but was unimpressed with the accomodation. The basic "sink in room, shared bathroom" halls were £104 per week, but the walls were unpainted breezeblock, and she reckoned that looking at the grey would send anyone into depression. The nicer en suite ones were £140 a week (and the catered halls they stayed in on the Friday night were £240 ).

Looks like Exeter might have dropped off her list, but it was only ever going to be a fourth or fifth choice.

I have DS1 doing Maths already at Warwick and it's top of DS2's list though not for Maths. The campus is lovely but the car parking arrangements for the July open day were slow, it was a park and ride a few miles away. Not as bad as Sheffield though. I guess I'm not used to cities and parking problems.
We went to Sheffield on Saturday and DS is returning to Nottingham (his second favourite) next week to look at a different subject. Parking at Nottingham is fine, all on campus fields.

We have ignored London partly due to cost but mainly because he decided early on that he wanted campus not city. I thought growing up in a rural area might have made the city life appealing but he hated all the city unis apart from Sheffield.

EllenJane we also peered at Exeter on the way back from Cornwall - but it turned out to be a graduation day so it was a bit crowded and we just got a general impression. DS liked it, but then he hasn't actually disliked anywhere, so it doesn't make it any easier to narrow down the list!

So who was out doing the rounds yesterday? We were at Birmingham in the pouring rain, so probably didn't see it at its best! One thing I couldn't quite get my head round- some of the accommodation is linked to the meal plan, but does that mean you can only stay there if you sign up for it? We preferred the "catered" rooms but DS doesn't want to go down the catered route. All the ensuite accommodation seemed very expensive, and only a few flats were open and only in one site so I'm not sure we got the complete picture. Academically the course is ideal, very impressive lecture which featured current students which is a first.

Surrey here. No catered accommodation but campus was a pleasant surprise.

Lizs I think from seeing previous posts if yours on various topics you like me are fairly close to Surrey Uni? It's funny isn't it that things in our doorstep are "hidden". What do you feel about somewhere so close to home? My DS has discounted Royal Holloway even though he really enjoyed a subject taster day earlier in the Summer because it is too close and he already socialises in the area!

Yes we must be! We're still a fair distance from Guildford though so neither Surrey nor RHC would be on the doorstep yet relatively easy to get home if he chose. He's not that keen to be too far away so discounted likes of Exeter and Durham , still debating York and Nottingham (we have family or friends near those) and will look at Warwick. Thinking campus rather than city.

Does anyone have feedback re. Sen support. Ds currently uses laptop in exams but the Surrey lady mentioned some funding (DSA?) and we'd need a very recent assessment to access their learning support from the beginning. He may or may not need help to get organised and settle in. Are there any Unis which have particularly good support available for those who might need assistance?

We visited Leeds University's Open day yesterday and were very pleasantly surprised! Although in fairness I've never been to Leeds before so had absolutely no expectations. My DD is looking at Economics and we both honestly felt that the lecturer delivered the best talk out of all the universities we have visited and being the PFB we have been to quite a few (Durham down to Oxbridge and everything in between it feels :) ) He just got the balance right between information about the course, the department, the support offered, where is all leads to and the positives of the University. He was obviously so passionate about what he taught and the research that was involved in that my DD was completely enthralled. She also loved the campus - it felt like there must be a real buzz about the place when the students are all there and because it is so pedestrianised it was relaxing to walk around. She didn't expect it to be a favourite but it is definitely now - it is a lovely when a course offers exactly what she was looking for - even if she didn't really know what she was looking for! Is there anything about Leeds that we should be aware of - she is still caught up in the buzz to look at it objectively and I know very little - as not from the UK!

Went to Southampton last Sunday - looked at the map and decided I wasn't driving all the way down to West Quay for a bus back, so sussed out somewhere to park between the main campus and Glen Eyre halls. Walking down to the humanities campus it seemed there was lots of weekend parking available. Anyway, dd liked the campus and the subject talk, but has crossed it of her list having heard the details of the course. (Did wonder if she could have done that online and saved us a trip!) Looked at a couple of halls and liked the bedrooms but not the kitchens.

Yesterday did Bristol and Bath by train which was heaving. She loved Bristol - knew she liked the look of the course already, and really liked the talk and the feel of the place. She definitely prefers the city universities. We didn't bother going out to Stoke Bishop to look at accommodation, just watched videos of them in the Information Fair, lol, whilst I winced at the prices!

Then on to Bath - not her ideal course, but has interesting features, so she was curious. Knew already that the campus was on the edge of town, but hadn't fully appreciated how "middle of nowhere" it would feel! She didn't like that, although the talk was interesting and the accommodation nice, so I think it's been crossed off too.

The list seems to be shrinking rapidly, I'm not sure she's going to have 5 choices she's happy with really. But at least she knows what she wants - a very specific course, and not on an out-of-town campus. So far Newcastle and Bristol are joint favourites, and she loved Leeds although the course would be a compromise (zazas both my girls really liked Leeds, and having friends living there I know it's a good city to live in - as far as I know there's no catch!). Also planning a trip to Cardiff, and wondering about Sheffield.