University Open Days

This might be in the wrong place, but it is worth a try.

What year should one be visiting Universities??

Is year 10 too early???

Also, How many should one visit?

Reply 1

RSmith1007

Original post by Xphoenix

This might be in the wrong place, but it is worth a try.

What year should one be visiting Universities??

Is year 10 too early???

Also, How many should one visit?

Go as earlier as you want really its best to be prepared, however most go towards the end of Year 12 and start of Year 13.

Go to as many as you feel necessary, they are really helpful a university I though I really liked turned out to be really bad on the open day and I decided not to apply to it. Also this is the other way round for a course I wasn't too sure about,I went to an open day and now I'm most likely going to put it down as my first choice. Also once you have applied to your 5 universities you can attend applicant visit days if you have received an offer and therefore you can get even more of a feel about the university and place you will be studying at.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 2

Frank the Tankk

Little bit early, but it's never a bad thing to be prepared. I'm in year 12 now and I've not attended any :K:

...can't wait till my first though! St Andrews in April! :biggrin:

Reply 3

rosiewantshugs

Maybe background research would be better at such an early stage unless you are really sure. I found that all the research I put in, reading good university guides, talking to friends at university and researching online, really helped me when I started visiting them around this time last year. (I was in year 12)

Good Luck!

Reply 4

katehlouise

To me, year 10 seems too early. You're at three years away from going to university, right? A lot can change in three years. I don't mean just your interests, but university courses can change, lecturers can change, facilities can change etc. I imagine you would visit again nearer to the time, but to me it still seems early.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 5

Origami Bullets

Original post by Xphoenix

This might be in the wrong place, but it is worth a try.

What year should one be visiting Universities??

Is year 10 too early???

Also, How many should one visit?

Most people go at the end of Y12 / beginning of Y13. However, there's nothing to stop you going in Y10. In fact, universities quite like it when students are thinking ahead - very often we see students who scuppered their own chances of getting into a particular uni / course because they didn't get the right advice and so did things like choosing a BTEC and then wanting to study medicine. There's a good reason why many universities start working with kids as young as Y6.

However, at this stage you're going to be using open days in a slightly different way to the sixth formers there. They're trying narrow down which course at which universities they want to apply to in a matter of weeks.

You should be going there to
- see what a university is like
- explore some different subject areas. You can study anything that you study at school now, but there are lots of new subjects available - politics, engineering, anthropology, linguistics, Middle Eastern studies, Japanese, biomedical science, physiotherapy.... the list goes on. On an open day, there will be a talk for each subject offered at that particular university, so you can go along to find out what new subjects are all about
- have something to aim for
- find out what qualifications, subjects and grades you need for different subjects (bearing in mind that these requirements will vary from uni to uni)
- talk to some current students and find out what uni life is like
- see where students live (i.e. have a look at the halls)

So, because you're not really trying to pick out a particular university, there's no need to travel a long way. If you were, for instance, from Birmingham then visiting Warwick would be entirely reasonable, but Edinburgh would be a little excessive until you're a bit further down the line.

Overall you should visit all the unis that you want to apply for, but for now there's no need to go to more than one or two unless you really want to.

Reply 6

Xphoenix

Original post by Origami Bullets

Thanks for all the Replies, I wanted to visit so I would know what subjects I should take for AS/A2, I still have a few courses in my mind which i like to take, and still deciding therefore. This in my opinion was the most useful, as it was very specific, however, if anyone else wishes to contribute feel free.

Just a quick question, by the time I will be taking my AS/A2 levels, the new system will in place, hope there isn't too much difference to the current one. If anyone has any information on the new system they could post it here(if it is allowed and it doesn't spam this post in the wrong category, or they can PM me, as i am quite curious).

Reply 7

Origami Bullets

Original post by Xphoenix

You can always find the details of any A Levels that are required on the university's website, but if you want a slightly more nuanced answer (e.g. better subjects to take, rather than requirements) then TSR can often give you a pretty good answer, or at an open day you can go to the subject talks. Normallly, a the end there will be some time for questions, and you can ask them then :smile:

Unless you want to take several very different courses, it's almost always possible to find a set of A Levels that will be acceptable for admission to all your choices :smile:

With regards to the new system (I presume you mean linear assessment and the scrapping of AS levels except as standalone qualifications), I don't think that anyone quite knows what's going to happen. However, I would expect to find that
- universities rely much more on GCSE grades as a measurement of how realistic A2 predictions are, as the AS grades won't be there
- schools will struggle to predict grades accurately, and as a result we will see a lot more people in Clearing / Adjustment after they massively over / underachieve. This will be nothing short of a nightmare for universities trying to hit recruitment targets.
- a lot more students will end up with funny sets of grades e.g. AAD because they haven't had the opportunity to (a) get some solid feedback on how well they're doing, and (b) change their path if it isn't going to plan. I know I would have been in this situation if I had sat A Levels under the system, and there's no way that I would have got into the uni that I am at now if that had happened.

Have you seen our A Levels subforum? It's over here http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=80 :smartass: