From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

Guidance and Decision-Making in Sixth Year 141
Open Days
In addition to guest speakers, students were positive about, and appeared
to benefit from, going to open days in universities or institutes of technology.
In many cases, these trips influenced what courses they put on
their CAO application form:
On the open day that I went to, the college that I want to go to, I had
great fun that day and that’s what really kind of drew me towards
that. (Harris Street, girls’ school, middle-class intake)
They are good because like you get to see what it’s actually like, the
campus and how to get down there, how to get to where you are going
as well. It’s good. (Fig Lane, coed school, middle-class intake)
Students felt that they particularly benefitted from talking to college students
which helped them with their decisions regarding higher education
choices:
They [open days] were good for getting the prospectus books and all
that sort of stuff.
You can talk to college students, they’d be at the stalls and you could
ask them what it’s like in college and all that. (Fig Lane, coed
school, middle-class intake)
Like the students bringing you around, they were really helpful because
they loved it and you could tell by the way they were explaining
that they loved it and they made me want to do it more so that
was really good … And [name of college] as well, all the students
were there, they were all at the weekend days and all the students
came and told, were talking. (Harris Street, girls’ school, middleclass
intake)
In some cases, their trips ruled out certain options and confirmed their
decisions about others:
I was in [name of university], [name of university] and that was it, in
[name of university] I went up because I thought it would be good. I
just hated the place straight away, I didn’t like it. I wasn’t into the
college layout or anything like that and then the topics covered were
really strange. So I just pretty much decided straight away on [name