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?

grammar - that may depend on the course. If they're interested in a technical subject, then looking at the facilities, probing how their problem classes and projects are organised can be quite illuminating.

Yes, it does depend on whether a parent has the time to take them or the kid can get there alone. If you've got the time and inclination, it can be quite enjoyable.

It's bad enough that parents appear unable to envision their children travelling to open days on their own. But to then complain about the time taken up by taking them is insane. They are 16, 17, even 18. They can travel on their own. They can stay in hotels on their own. If parents want to come, fine, although I question the benefit. But ffs stop complaining about it: it's your choice.

I've done 3 so far,dh has done 1.I have to say for my dd's prospective course they've been incredibly useful in terms of knowing how to apply and how to interview.
Dd1 wanted us to go with her although her friend has gone to the same ones also with parents in tow.Bristol Open day appeared to be a day out for whole families .Virtually everyone seemed to come with parents as was the case largely in Liverpool.

Dd1 did the first one on her own, but was the only prospective student she saw without parents (in fact, one set of parents seemed to feel a bit sorry for her ). The second one dh went along to, as he wanted to see what they were like. She'll probably go on her own to the others.

I didn't go to any Open Days at all when I was looking at unis years ago (languages), but according to dd1 and dh it was useful to get a feel of the place. As they're quite far away from us they're all in cities that she hasn't visited before, and she's found it useful to see the labs, etc.

What Errol said. It's a marvelous opportunity for 17 year olds to do something independently. Mine were delighted to go on their own.
Parents could plan the (train) journey and buy the ticket.

Summer of y12/early Y13 although for Oxbridge and Medicine etc earlier as the application timeline and preparation differs.

I think doing the right A levels is key but schools should be able to advise on this or MN of course. If you can get into a subject day at Oxbridge, you will get the best information regarding what to study if there are doubts! I know plenty of young people who went without parents on open days and I also have seen huge numbers of parents at the universities. It is what works for you. Leeds offered overnight accommodation in one of their halls. The main thing is, not to try and do too many. All 5 can be onerous if they are all over the country, not to mention expensive.

I think doing the right A levels is key but schools should be able to advise on this

Honestly, they really don't. Suppose we started a drinking game with a covert hipflask: a shot every time someone comes to the stand and turns out to be doing completely inappropriate A Levels, an extra shot every time they then say "but my school said they would be OK" and a bonus swig from a second flask of cask-strength 130 proof Wild Turkey every time an accompanying parent decides to start an argument about it claiming you don't know your own department's admission requirements? We'd be in hospital having our stomachs pumped by shift change at 11am.

We visited our 2 local ones at the end of GCSEs as I wanted to show DD what a university was like. She found it very useful as we looked at 2 different healthcare courses she was interested in. For DD2 it was a bit different as she had been dragged along to some open days with DD1

My dd (and ds before her) have done loads of stuff 'sans parents', but a) it's cheaper usually to take them by car than buy a train ticket, b) it's quìte nice to spend a day with just one of the dc at a time, c) its actually quite nice to see differnt universities.

Yes, they can go on their own, but, as, between us dh and i have the time, then I'm not sure what the problem is.

You can do visits in the summer of Y12 or the autumn of Y13. Look at websites because some Open Days get booked up very quickly. although you can always just turn up and gatecrash but you might miss some information/talks.
It can be useful if a parent comes along - it's an extra set of eyes & ears and someone to compare notes with. Alternatively, sometimes it's good if they go on their own to faraway places so they can realise for themselves what a pita it will be to travel there.

Open Days get booked up very quickly

I guess for small, heavily over-subscribed places you might get turned away from some very popular events, but at campus universities the only reason the booking is pushed is to try to capture details for followup. At my university, they are keen to get you to check in on arrival as you enter the campus, but no-one else cares: so far as I can recall, we would have no way in the department to distinguish between someone who has booked and someone who hasn't, and wouldn't care anyway. Since one of the appeals of open days is to be able to look at multiple departments, that's a good thing. I spoke to a couple of hundred people at each of the talks I did last week, but we had loads of spare room in a big lecture theatre (I gather it was a bit tighter on the Saturday, but we would have probably just run an additional session had it really overflowed).

It's different for post-offer days, when we do things like booking you in for a 1:1 with an academic, but for straight open days, I'd be fascinated to hear if anyone's ever been seriously disadvantaged by not having booked. A university that did that is basically cutting its nose off to spite its face: we should be welcoming people, not erecting barriers, At Yale, you can get a guided tour every day apart from Christmas Day. UK university should be much more open.

At Bristol, they were letting people who'd booked into the subject talk first, and then the others were queued up waiting to see if there was space, and I don't think all of them got in.

I can't remember if there was anything like that anywhere else.

That is, people who had booked for that talk, not just people who'd booked onto the open day.

Eeek Atia, DD is hoping to go on the Bristol Uni open day in Sep - she better be ready to book it asap!

She has already been to two with friends (no probs getting into talks AFAIK) and I am going with her to another one.

I think it would be too much to try to do them all in September/October and the first two visits really fired up her enthusiasm. Now she has to decide between two particular degree subjects as apparently you can only write a Personal Statement for one "subject" and there are two similar areas she is interested in

lljkk DD and her friends were adamant they wanted to move schools for Sixth Form in Y10 so they researched and made a long list which they narrowed down. We took them to visit 6 in the Sep/Oct of Y11 and DD applied for and got offers for all 6. She chose the nearest and thankfully got the grades!

as apparently you can only write a Personal Statement for one "subject" and there are two similar areas she is interested in

This is possible. You can only apply for four medicine courses so the fifth choice is usually something like BioChem - they must word it so that the fifth choice doesn't stand out too much as a fifth choice.
You do hear strange stories of people applying for four medicine and (say) law - and still getting five offers! Presumably you write something like a horoscope that sounds personalised and pertinent but actually applies to every occasion.

As usual at this point, I will remind people that the vast majority of personal statements are never read. Apply to a course with predicted grades at about the right level in about the right subjects, meeting the floor requirements for GCSE, and in 90%+ of cases you get an offer on the basis of that alone. The main exception is medicine, but for Oxbridge there is much more weight on additional tests and submitted work. The idea that admissions staff read a thousand personal statements and sift through them looking for subtle clues, which is apparently what some schools tell their pupils, is farcical.

To take senua's example, the sort of Law course that you would be applying for as a backup to medicine would almost certainly not read personal statement. There's not a lot such a personal statement could say, Law courses aren't wildly oversubscribed with qualified candidates outside Oxbridge (which it's unlikely a potential medic would be applying to as their fifth slot) and a potential medic presumably has the grades for any Law course and some to spare.

University admission has replaced secondary admission (where at last, equal preference does appear to actually be understood) as the place where rumours of special secret mechanisms circulate. Have decent GCSEs, be predicted the right grades in the right A Levels, 95% of courses will make you an offer by return.

95% of courses will make you an offer by return.

Are the 5% all Durham?

Are the 5% all Durham?

Both of my kids applied to Durham and Bristol and got offers by return. These weren't for MN-obsession courses, being in the (gasp!) humanities.

The Scottish places appear to be slower. One hears stories about Exeter. I know of one large university which had process issues this year which delayed offers substantially, but it wasn't caused by reading personal statements and weighing up the county orchestra against your work experience at 15, it was staff illness.

The obvious exceptions are places that interview but aren't Oxbridge, with Imperial the obvious example, plus a small number of extremely over-subscribed courses which for various reasons haven't responded by just upping the tariff, and applicants with non-standard qualifications.

Well that's what I thought, but apparently it's not that easy! And yes, it is similar to the Medicine/Biochem scenario, but not sciences. And it's likely to possibly be 3 and 2

Neckguard, that is exactly what I have been thinking all along - who actually reads the bloody things (my good friend who is high up in a RG uni for Maths says they don't)?

DD will probably be applying for Eco BA or Social Policy - do you think those departments won't read them?

And my friends DD is going to apply for a niche degree which apparently always interviews. Please tell me that won't happen to my DD!

Well that's what I thought, but apparently it's not that easy!

Based on what evidence?

I have an acquaintance who is the admissions lead for a major RG department. They have on several occasions gone into schools and told the facts about admission to their course, and their university more generally. Afterwards, apparently (in one case their child was in the room at the time) , the teachers have said "well, the universities may say this about admissions, but they're not telling the truth, so you need to do this, this and this to have a chance".

FFS. There is no shortage of places for 95% of courses. Admission is done on A level grades and collateral supporting them to make conditional offers slightly less of a lottery. Outside of medicine, you should get 5 offers for 5 applicants, except Oxbridge/Imperial applicants might only get 4, provided you have applied to universities realistically for your predicted grades. People make a huge fuss about nothing over university applications. It really isn't that hard.

Neckguard, according to Ho6th, DH who was HO6th in a high-achieving grammar school, doncha know and friend who is HO6th!

I am going to show DD your posts - hopefully she can cobble something together so she can apply for the courses she wants to get on rather than finding 5 courses to fit her PS.

DD will probably be applying for Eco BA or Social Policy - do you think those departments won't read them?

I'd put money on it. Unless it's the LSE, there's hardly an oversupply of applicants, so why wouldn't they just make conditional offers to everyone with a reasonable chance of making it?

And my friends DD is going to apply for a niche degree which apparently always interviews.

Yeah, they exist: usually courses which need some attribute that A Levels genuinely don't predict for. Oxbridge interview because of the need to see if you respond well to tutorial teaching, Imperial are so crushed under the weight of applicants they need to do something other asking for yet more A*s, a few courses may be essentially teaching ab initio and need some way to see who's up to it.

But as your maths friend says, Maths would be a clear example of the exams-based process. What's a better predictor for passing exams in maths than having passed exams in maths, would you say?