The short answer. Open days are worth going to, and you should go if you can. But they show a university on its best day: the sunniest version of the campus, the best rooms, and the students who volunteered to be there. The things that decide whether you enjoy your first year are mostly ordinary, and mostly invisible on a tour. Here is what to look at instead, and who to ask.
Key points
- An open day shows you the place. It cannot show you the ordinary week.
- The students on the stands volunteered to be there, so they are not a random sample of the course.
- Walk the route you would actually walk every day, not the route the tour takes.
- Save the honest questions for a conversation arranged in advance, not a busy stand.
What is an open day actually good for?
Three things, and they are worth the trip. First, the place itself: the size, the walk from the station, whether the campus feels like a campus or like a set of buildings in a city. Second, the practical details: which building your subject lives in, how labs or studios look, where the library is. Third, the feel of the town on the day you visit.
None of that is trivial. Somewhere can look perfect on a website and feel wrong in person within ten minutes. An open day is very good at telling you that.
What can an open day not tell you?
- A normal week. You see the day the university has prepared. You do not see a wet Tuesday in week four when there are two deadlines and the reading is behind.
- The town outside the visit. Every place is nice on a sunny open day. Ask what it is like in February, and what students do when it rains for a week.
- How much reading there really is, and whether students do it. This is the single most useful thing to know about a course, and it never appears on a stand.
- What happens when things go wrong. Who you contact, how quickly you get help, and whether the department is good at it.
- The typical student. The people on the stands volunteered, and many of them are the most enthusiastic students in the department. That is useful, but it is not a sample.
- How much the course is taught by the people you meet. The staff who present on an open day are not always the staff who teach first years.
- Where first years actually live, and how far that is from teaching. Ask about the real walk in the rain, not the one on the map.
- Who else is applying. The other students in the room are a preview of your future classmates, and most people never look at them.
What should you do while you are there?
- Walk the real route. From the halls to your department, at the time of day you would walk it. Ask a student which way people actually go.
- Eat where students eat. Not the café set up for visitors. Look at what the ordinary food is like and what it costs you in time and queueing.
- Look at where students work. Find the library and the study spaces, and check whether there is room for you at 5pm on a weekday.
- Read the noticeboards. Department corridors and student union boards tell you what the place is really busy with: societies, part time jobs, revision sessions, worries.
- Talk to students away from the official stands. Anyone with a lanyard is there to help, and so is anyone eating lunch on a bench. The second group gives more useful answers.
What should you ask while you are there?
Keep the questions on the day short and factual: the timetable, the size of teaching groups, how the assessment works, and how the year is structured. Save the bigger questions about workload, support and what students would change for a proper conversation.
We have a longer list in our guide on the 15 questions to ask a current student, and a separate guide on the best ways to talk to current students if you are not sure who to ask or how to find them.
What if you cannot go at all?
You can still cover most of it. The university's own course pages give you the modules, the entry requirements and the teaching format. Virtual tours and department videos show you the buildings. A conversation with a current student covers the rest, and often better than a visit, because you can ask about the ordinary week rather than only what you can see.
The part open days cannot do
Already Doing It
An open day shows you the place on its best day. A Uni Insider conversation gets you the ordinary week: 30 minutes one to one with a current student or recent graduate, on the course and at the university you are considering, so you can ask what the work and the term are actually like.
Book a conversation at alreadydoingit.co.uk
Already Doing It publishes this site.
Questions people ask about open days
Is it worth going to an open day at all?
Yes. You will see the buildings, the walk between the department and the halls, and the town itself. Just treat it as one piece of information, not as the decision. The bits it cannot show you are the bits that decide whether you enjoy the first year.
Can I visit on an ordinary teaching day instead?
Often, yes. Many departments will arrange a visit or put you in touch with a current student if you email and ask. It is also worth checking whether the university runs applicant visit days, which are usually smaller and calmer than open days.
What if I cannot attend any open day?
You can still cover most of it: the university's own course pages for the modules and requirements, virtual tours for the campus, and a conversation with a current student for everything the first two miss.