Uni visits - when?

[tenbyeight]

Just want to know when do people take their kids to visit universities? 1st or 2nd year of A levels? Or as soon as gcse results come out?

We did all of ours in the autumn of y13.

Next time, I will spread them out more as it was too much.

1st year of a levels. Open days start at Easter (Scotland, Durham) and continue. Each uni has 2 or 3 and some are subject specific (these are better in our experience). DD was invited to offer holders' days by unis, some of which were trying hard to get students to accept (free meals, parking etc).

Do the visits help to encourage your dcs to want to go to unis?

Ds and I went in the summer after his first year as UCAS forms needed to be started in the September.

My dd is in year 12 and visiting now.

My DD started to look after her AS Levels had finished.

If you are looking at Oxbridge, medicine, veterinary or dentistry applications have to be submitted by mid October so earlier is better as gives them more time.

Open days are usually summer term of y12 and autumn term of y13. It is better to have a good idea of where you want to visit before that and what subject. Some subjects require very early planning for early UCAS deadlines and possibly portfolios etc. Some universities will be happy for you to book in after GCSEs, especially for subject days. It will depend on how much room they have and what their policy is on open day events.

may I tag on a question... when do folk visit 6th forms? Start yr11? End yr10?

Just that for secondary schools all of them are in local area it s easily to visit several in a week. But unis are a lot further apart. Does it sometimes involve over night staying in b&bs etc?

I guess you would need to stay in a premier inn or similar if they were far away as most open days are 10-4 and I found you need the whole time. So would involve an early start if you didn't stay the night before.

lljkk the sixth forms/sixth form colleges my dd was interested in had their open evenings mostly in the autumn of y11.

tenby

Argh, posted itself and then crashed!

Was trying to say that you'll just have to have a look and make some plans. My dd1's open days were day trips apart from the one where I went with her and we stayed with a friend of mine. Dd2 and dh did two northern ones (we are in the South) on a Fri/Sat, staying over both nights. So a mixture. Dd2 then went back to Newcastle for an offer holder's day and managed a day trip on the train, out from about 6.30am - 10.30pm.

So yes, it depends on a lot of things :-)

DD has just done AS so now and then sept/October of this year she's doing a lot of open days, but we also took her to a few of the closer unis last year to start getting some benchmarks, asking the initial round of questions, getting her comfortable with chatting to staff and students.

Quite a lot of overnight stays for us - if you're planning on visiting distant unis then book accommodation as soon as you've got the dates sorted as it fills up quickly near the popular places and they hike the prices.

As this year just finished , all uni visits done except Exeter in September. If they are applying for early application the deadline is mid October so best toget them done straight after ASs

lljkk All the 6th forms in our authority had open evenings over a 2 week period at end Oct / start Nov.

University open days go on in the Summer term of Yr12 and the Autumn of Yr13, but schools like them to be working on their personal statements in the first half of the Autumn Term of Yr 13, so good idea to have got going before then.

Re staying, it depends I suppose on where you live and where you are looking. All of ours (for 2 dc) have been within a 3 hr drive, so we've not stayed over.

ljjk - DD got lots of cards/letters inviting her to 6th form college open days so you may find it becomes quite apparent!

Thanks for replies; we are lucky to have a 6th form with good reputation 1/2 mile away. I noticed their Open evening advertisement banner today. I know they take early applications in autumn, not sure if DD will want to look elsewhere, anyway.

University open days go on in the Summer term of Yr12 and the Autumn of Yr13,

It's worth having an initial look after GCSEs. It gives you a bit of a sense of purpose going into Y12, gives a chance to check you've chosen sane A Levels and generally get a sense of how the land lies. Just go to perhaps he closest place that you might think of applying to. Under another name I started a long lament about how grim it is telling people at the end of Y12 or beginning of Y13 that they're wasting their time, as they aren't doing the right subjects either for us or any comparable university, and avoiding that nightmare is good for everyone.

Oh, and less of the "take". Buy them a train ticket and wish them well.

First year of A levels for dd1. We had to be quite organised as there's a plane flight between us and all the unis she wants to go to so it worked out quite expensive as well.

She's now seen 3 - two Open Days (one last month and one last week), and a week-long work experience placement in the relevant department of another one, so she probably doesn't need to go to their Open Day as well. One of the others does a self-guided tour at any time of the year, which she'll probably go for as their Open Day doesn't work for her date-wise, and she doesn't know what her fifth choice is yet.

If you go onto the website of the unis they're interested in, there'll be a list of forthcoming Open Days. For some of them you can sign up to get an email when booking opens, which is handier than constantly checking the website.

re the 'taking them' - at Bristol the other week, we seemed to notice a lot more girls with one or two parents (when we checked into the holiday inn express we clocked 8 sets within about 10 minutes!) - talking with friends I think it tends to be groups of lads who go sans parents. Our DD values our insights but FGS don't 'helicopter', split up as far as you can and let them talk for themselves.

I'm a bit sceptical about uni visits. You could end up doing a round country tour. I have one at Cambs and one at Bristol, didn't do either visit , in the end... did SOAS and Exeter, neither did they choose. So many depend on parents being able to take 'days off' to do this, I feel hijacked' often and still have a third to consider. Don't jump through hoops, often they are as happy/unhappy as they would have been elsewhere as happiness tends to be based on more external factors such as the transition to other education, looking after themselves, isolation, worry about achievement, all this need not need a visit, it's a bonus.

All the unis I have visited have be on a Saturday.