2015 university open days

[hellsbells99]

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

My friend's daughter is at UEA, as was my nephew. They both really like Norwich, very different personalities and subjects. There are wild rabbits on the campus.

Apparently it has more rabbits than any other uni?

We saw a rabbit!!

Perhaps there should be a bunny ranking of unis .

The student who gave us a tour of Warwick was a Londoner and very enthusiastic about the rabbits and other wild life. Not a novelty when, like us, you live surrounded by fields .

We are down near Norwich in a few weeks, maybe worth a quick look at UEA, I have heard lots of good things about it and DS is definitely sold on going to a campus uni.

Yes we are focussing on campus Unis- it's what he's used to being at a fairly big public school on one site, and he feels he would be more comfortable in a familiar environment so to speak. He's not into drinking and parties so having other stuff on hand on a campus will suit him I think.

homebythesea that's exactly the same as DS in terms of being able to find plenty of other interests on campus. DS is also not a drinking and party person and I do worry slightly that he will be in a very small minority at university!

I can recommend UEA from personal experience!

Morvah- I'm taking comfort from press reports about this generation of teens being more into clean living

To be honest the drinking scene seems to have diminished for my DS cohort since they were all 14/15 and very giddy. I can't imagine that his lot are so very unusual they won't be able to find similar souls when they go to Uni

Did anyone else endure Durham in the rain today? It was grim!

What did you think of Durham? We are going next weekend

Durham was ds first choice last year but he didnt get in. It does come across as very nurturing and has a low drop out rate. Ds friend isv
there and seems to be having a good time. Durham can take forever to make decisions though. DS didnt hear from them until April.

It's a bit hard for me to say as I went to Durham myself. However, seeing it through DD's eyes today it didn't look as good as I'd hoped. The accommodation we saw looked very tired - we were at Lancaster on Saturday and it was much better there - and the subject talks we attended today weren't all that great either. One of them was totally uninspiring which was really disappointing.

Manchester uni accommodation varies. There are some nicer halls.

Thanks Hells, some of the rooms on the Flickr site do look more attractive. Makes me wonder whether they were trying to be more realistic for the prospective students, rather than trotting everyone round the newest and shiniest accomodation.

DS went to Durham yesterday. On paper he thought the course looked fantastic but he was uninspired by the talks and there wasn't the flexibility within the course that he has seen elsewhere. He didn't get around to looking at accommodation as he was on a college trip and ran out of time. Several of his friends were unable to get into talks because they hadn't pre-booked places.

When DS1 applied to Durham he was allocated a different college to the one he applied to, so there seems little point in spending too much time choosing a college.

We too endured the rain at Durham. We missed the first talk as had to queue 15 minutes to get the last parking slot at the Howlands Park and Ride at 9am!

Ds loved the college tour. He wants to pick up the college and move it to Warwick and then he would be happy.

The Liberal Arts course at Durham turned out to be a flexible combined honours course, with no core modules or particular ethos change from its previous incarnation as Flexible Combined Honours, so he's not interested. He doesn't want to do History single honours and anyway was scared by the "2000 applicants for 100 (or 150?) places" comment at the History talk.

We had a look at the Student's Union (which does look tired) and the little Assembly Rooms Theatre. The student drama scene sounds brilliant.
I'm hoping he will change his mind and decide 3 years studying History at Durham would suit him but I thinkhe needs to see some of the big city universities before he may think that place could be more important to him than exactly the right course. He really like the small town cobbled streets feel around where the History department is based.
A bit of a frustrating day, except for running into a very good friend there with her daughter, who is in several of ds's classes.

DS had a college organised day at Oxford today which proved interesting in that although he absolutely loved the place and the atmosphere, the course he wants to do isn't really covered. It therefore isn't worth applying in my view, but he is so keen to give it a go that he would consider a different type of course!

Dd2 was in Cambridge today. One of the tutors was talking to them about personal statements: "don't tell me about your gold duke of Edinburgh award, I don't care. I don't even know what that is" Basically told them to show that they are obsessed with their subject.

AtiaoftheJulii yes that was the message DS1 got loud and clear from every talk he went to and everyone he spoke to at Cambridge. He never did DofE and on his PS there was truly only one short sentence about extra curricular. He got five offers including Cambridge.
DS2 took that as the green light to avoid all extra curricular even though he has no plans to apply to Oxbridge

We're going up to an open day at the Uni of Salford in Manchester soon. Thing is due to train times I don't think we'll be there until 11ish and times are 10 - 4. It will be our first Uni visit so I wanted to ask those with more experience do you think we'll miss much and will we be able to catch up with the rest of the day OK? Manchester is quite a long way for us to go - am hoping the Uni's are a bit flexible about arrival times with this in mind - as obviously we won't be the only ones making a bit of a trek? Also did you get sent an email with day's programme before you went?

I have only been to one Open Day, at Bath. I think it was from 9 - 4. DD and I arrived about 11, and had plenty of time to see everything she wanted to. We were emailed a ticket, with the names and times of the two talks she had booked printed on them. These were checked by staff before we went into the lecture theatre, but they also had a separate queue for people who hadn't booked who they said they would let in if there was room. Everyone got in!

JugglingFromHereToThere I am sure 11 to 4 will be plenty of time.
All the ones DS has been to were pre-booked online. Where possible the subject talks were pre-booked. Some unis, including Manchester, don't require booking of talks but others won't let you in without.

Atia & Secret - what do they put on their PS then? DD1 was told to write about why she wanted to do the course, what activities/courses etc she had done relating to the course, write about her A levels relating to the degree choice and then write about extra curriculars in terms of what skills they had given her relating to the degree choice, and then a very short conclusion. And yes, she did include D of E! She got all her offers (post interview) but was not applying to somewhere like Oxbridge. DD2 may be looking at Oxbridge (not sure yet) so what will she need to focus on? We don't have much of a clue

You should ask for advice from people who know about DD2's subject as they are not all the same. Though I have to say that at DC's college they always get a couple of people from Oxbridge to do a talk to potential candidates and they all said pretty much what atia said, ie don't tell me about your gold duke of Edinburgh award, I don't care

DS wrote about his subject, all the stuff he was interested in and learned by reading around the subject. Work done in addition to normal A levels (extra modules) , competitions entered in the subject, courses attended. So very much as you say your DD1 wrote.
What he didn't write about were - hobbies, sports, DofE, musical instruments or any other skills besides those in his subject, though I think he did mention his part time job.

I would have thought there was enough room on a personal statement to include things like DofE, musical instruments played, and other interests, hobbies, and sports. I guess it just doesn't need to be the focus. Interesting to read for some Uni's some advice to show strongly your interest for the subject in question. Personally I would think there's room for both
But I need to find out more and read some examples. Am sure there's time as we're Y11. Hope DC will get good advice at school too
Thanks to those who gave reassurance about getting there for 11am

Absolutely juggling they should include it all if they want to. The same PS goes to all five uni choices so some may be looking for different things to others. hells was specifically asking about Oxbridge.
I do seem to remember the hardest part for DS was in keeping the word count down.

Thanks Secret & Juggling. I do remember having to help DD1 reduce her word count massively. And yes, she wrote about musical instruments too!
But as Secret and Atia say, Oxbridge are slightly different better talk her out of it!