Several decades ago I sat in the refectory at Goldsmiths, University of London, wearing a dirndl (the horror!), observing achingly hip girls and boys in slashed jeans and Dr Martens boots, while dance students pirouetted across the oak floor and ate their lunch en pointe. It felt like a creative hub where the possibilities might be endless. It was my first open day. I had found my tribe.
My parents didn’t attend. There was no expectation that they ever would. It wasn’t the way then. But now, with students leaving university with extraordinary debts extending for half a lifetime, very much more is at stake. Since the introduction of fees and — dare I say it — a more over-protective, over-ambitious generation of parents, more of us are traipsing cross-country and downloading campus apps to attend open days.
It is tempting to skip them altogether — too far, too expensive, the ghastly prospect of sharp-elbowed parents with pinging Apple watches and spreadsheets (yes, seen at the universities of Bristol and Durham). Aside from the chance to gawp at other families going through the same stressful rite of passage close up, are they really worth the effort? The answer is yes.
After a quick poll of some of the young people I know, nearly all say the same thing. Ruby, who studied psychology at Liverpool, says: “I thought I really wanted to go to Warwick, then visited and realisedit was a quiet bubble, whereas Liverpool was buzzing. Walking around campus, I knew I’d fit in.” For Zoe, who went to UEA to study economics, “seeing the housing was important, and talking to students about societies and nightlife”.
I’ve travelled the UK visiting universities with four of my five children — three are setting off this year — one son to study English and linguistics at King’s College London, another music technology at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol. My eldest daughter, who studied psychology at Sussex, is going back for a master’s. Mercifully, we will then have a break from the planning and the monstrous expense — the youngest is only nine.
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Arriving at Newcastle University on a damp October morning, late and, yes, horribly underprepared, son No 1 and I were greeted by a bright-eyed student ambassador in high-vis: “It’s surprising how many families come to open days without a plan,” she trilled. My daughter downloaded maps, booked tours, planned itineraries and handed me a list of dates and places she wanted to see. When it came to her brothers, I found it best to keep expectations low. I counted it a win if we got the right day and the boys were sober and in the car on time.
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And yet I’d argue we got almost as much out of all our visits. Coaxed back to consciousness by a McDonald’s breakfast and the comforting chirruping of Radio 4, teenagers chat on long solo car journeys in a way they don’t at home. And on campus we managed to (mostly) see what we needed even if we hadn’t downloaded the app.
Don’t, unless absolutely unavoidable, take younger siblings. Open days mean time spent focusing on one child, which is especially rare in large families.
Expect course-specific talks and tours of the teaching facilities and students’ union as well as the accommodation, where you have to quell the lump in your throat at leaving your baby among the hard Formica surfaces, soon to be covered in wall-to-wall pizza boxes.
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Do not get carried away reliving your own university days. The daughter of a colleague who took her to the University of Oxford open day twice (she has a deferred application) insisted on going round on her own, because the first time he had apparently told any don who would listen that he had been to Balliol (her father strongly disputes this version of events).
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Do be careful not to get hung up on research-intensive universities if an outlier emerges as a better fit for your child. A friend whose expensively educated son decided to study maths at the University of Reading after attending an open day was baffled by his choice. “But it’s not Russell Group,” she wailed. Deaf to her pleas, he was transfixed by its sports facilities, settled instantly and is as happy as a clam. Touring the UWE music department with son No 3, it was gloriously clear that this was a team that loved working together and would nurture the fragile talent of the assembled youth, huddled into their hoodies, flanked by anxious mums and dads.
Son No 2 had a ghastly year at Leeds — chosen because he missed out on a place at the University of Bristol to study philosophy on the basis of his maths GCSE (not a 9). Leeds (Russell Group) wanted high grades and felt prestigious — neither, on reflection, is a good reason for choosing a university. We didn’t attend the open day. If we had, his gut instinct may well have told him before he enrolled that it was not his spiritual home. He lasted a year.
My two eldest have settled in the cities they studied in — Bristol and Brighton. The café where we went to digest son No 1’s open day is now his local. His sister is staying in Sussex for her master’s not just because she was offered a scholarship on the basis of her degree score, but because after considering Oxford and King’s — both beautiful and prestigious universities — Sussex “feels like home”.
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“The open day was a massive factor in me choosing the university,” she says. “Sitting in a lecture meant I could imagine myself there.”
Which brings me to alternatives to open days — much can be learnt from staying with mates or siblings’ mates. All my children chose or rejected universities on the basis of staying with students already there.
My daughter stayed with a friend at UEA — beautiful campus, her friend was in heaven — but it felt too isolated for her. And after visiting a far-flung university his friends were loving, son No 3 muttered only one word — “traumatising” — before sloping off to bed.
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