Why You Should Attend Offer Holder Days

At this point in the UCAS application cycle, you might have begun to receive offers from some of your chosen universities. Whilst this is obviously great news – especially if it’s an offer from your initial first choice – it also presents a new challenge: how do you ultimately choose which university is right for you?

Although I didn’t have the opportunity to attend an open day, one major factor in my final decision to study here at Kingston was based on my experience at one of KU’s offer holder days. So firstly, what's the difference between open days and offer holder days?

In comparison to open days - which are open to all and provide attendees with a broad look at campus life and the general facilities available - offer holder days are invite-only events. They're significantly more subject-focused than open days, with courses putting on taster sessions to allow you to experience what studying your degree at that university might be like. There are obviously many benefits to attending offer holders days, but here are a few of the main ones:

Meet your course lecturers/teaching staff.
Your course taster session will likely be held by senior members of your course or faculty – for example, mine was held by my course leader, one of my lecturers and a few second-year students. Meeting teaching staff and current students in-person ensures any questions you might have about the course can be answered quickly and directly, and you’ll likely walk away from the offer-holder day with a much clearer idea of how the course is structured on a day-to-day basis.

Chat to other offer holders.
One of my favourite parts of the offer holder day I attended was having the opportunity to meet other offer holders. Whilst lots of students in my sixth form were obviously applying to university at the same time as I was, we were all applying for different courses at different universities across the UK and no matter what, there was always going to be a disconnect in what we were looking for when choosing our courses. Being able to chat to people who had applied to similar courses as I had and were beginning to make the same sort of considerations (e.g. location/course content/facilities) was fantastic – and many of the offer holders I met on that day ended up becoming some of my closest coursemates! :biggrin:

Take part in in-person accommodation tours.
If you've received an offer from multiple universities, something you might be considering is where you want to live and the accommodation available to you in each location/at each university. Offer-holder days usually provide guided tours of the university’s halls of residence, allowing you and your friends/family to have a look around exemplar student flats and other hall facilities (e.g. common rooms/laundry rooms/green spaces). Unless you’re commuting, most first-year students stay in halls of residence: having the opportunity to see them in-person before you make your final UCAS decisions can be extremely useful.

Hope this was helpful for anyone who might have received an invitation for an offer-holder day but wasn’t sure whether to attend or not. Not all universities will host offer-holder days – but if you have the chance to attend one, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it.

Eve (Kingston Rep).

(edited 2 months ago)

Reply 1

risasakura

Hey , I’m coming to the Kingston one that’s coming shortly. I haven’t received information about the timing of the event yet. What should I do as I need to book train tickets to get them cheaper ?

Reply 2

Kingston Yasmin

Official Rep

Original post by risasakura

Hi @risasakura

I have had the same question over on this thread so have popped the link below for you to check out:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7572991

We look forward to seeing you and please let me know if I can help with anything else :smile:

-Yasmin (Kingston Rep)

Reply 3

risasakura

Original post by Kingston Yasmin

Hi @risasakura
I have had the same question over on this thread so have popped the link below for you to check out:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7572991
We look forward to seeing you and please let me know if I can help with anything else :smile:

-Yasmin (Kingston Rep)

thank you