Jake is in the midst of open days at the moment. Last Wednesday he had a trip to Oxford by himself, after we'd taken him for a little look around and a trip to Corpus during half term. I took the train up to London with him in the morning as I had a meeting there, and we headed in opposite directions on the tube. Then at the end of the day we met up at St Pancras and went for a meal together before coming home. He seemed pretty enthusiastic about it, and has subsequently made specific mention of Merton College as a favourite.
On Friday we boarded the train at Ebbsfleet again, this time for a rather longer journey, and went all the way to Durham together, staying overnight in a hotel just outside the city before going to open day events on Saturday. I left Jake to it for the morning whilst he went to the business school, the sports centre, and a couple of colleges, and then met up with him for a bite to eat (at a café recommended by Dave). I joined him for the afternoon tour which included a drop-in maths talk and a look at Crockford's old college.
My verdict was that the place and the university seemed very good, but obviously it doesn't really matter what I think. Jake seemed a little less enamoured, but I think that was mainly due to the fact that his number one preference lies elsewhere at the moment.
Unfortunately the Saturday visit clashed with Founder's Day, and so Jake had to show his face for a while in school yesterday, but they released him towards the end of the morning, so he was still able to go to Westfield for a bit of retail therapy with Izzy. As for the rest of this week, there is a trip to LSE coming up on Thursday, so it will be interesting to see how that goes (not to mention stopping by at a few Californian colleges in a month or so).